


Lies, Crimes, and Punishments

by argus



Category: Digimon Adventure Zero Two | Digimon Adventure 02
Genre: Blasphemy, Catholic, EVERYTHING GOES WRONG, Explicit Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Much love for dostoevsky, Murder, Nothing goes right, Rare Pairings, References to Drugs, Self-Hatred, Sex, Suicide Attempt, The Author Regrets Everything, Yaoi, lots and lots and lots of blasphemy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-09
Updated: 2008-08-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 03:42:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 48,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16233506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argus/pseuds/argus
Summary: Old work circa 2008.  Deleted from other archives for being too explicit and too violent.  You've been warned!Koushiro has entered the priesthood, Ken has entered the world of drug dealing.  The two together are a dangerous mix.  Too smart for their own good?  Or too much baggage to be functioning members of society?Inspired and very loosely based on Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment.





	1. Prologue

  
  
This is based loosely - inspired by - Fyodor Dostoevsky's monumental work Crime and Punishment.  
Dear god, that man had talent! Read it if you haven't. It's worth the several weeks it will take you to finish. :)  
  
  
Obligatory disclaimers:  
   I do not own Digimon, and I've never claimed to. This is written to exorcise my creativity (what still remains) only and not to infringe upon anyone's god-given copyright.  
   Do not read if you are offended by religious or sacrilegious themes, homosexual themes, or are simply easily offended. Flamers are disregarded as being lower forms of life. Don't waste my time or yours. :)  
That said, if you love yaoi Digimon as much as I do and have a dark streak, read on!  
Reviews are welcomed, as are corrections to my horrendous grammar and spelling.   
  
  
  
  
 **Lies, Crimes, and Punishments**  
  
  
  
He slunk in through the high, arching doors that shut out the worldly noises and trash. His black stocking cap clung tightly to his equally black, long hair. It touched his shoulders and was there soiled by melting snow. Like the curtain that floated through the air and muffled everyone, the closed doors now cloaked the man in an uncomfortable silence. The silence of aristocratic funerals and proletarian basements. His grey hooded sweatshirt was brushed clean by a gloved hand and the frozen water fell in a pile by his midnight-shod feet. He didn't dare walk any further, intimidated by the comforting candles and burgundy upholstery. An old, white robed man emerged from some hidden side door and began extinguishing the flames with a brass snuff. The solemn head turned.  
"Oh, hello. I'm sorry if you're here for mass, we re-scheduled it for earlier this evening. On account of the weather." His hand waved expansively although the outside was safely shut out.  
"No, father. I'm actually here for confession. Am I..." His voice hid under his furrowed brows and the weight of the evil world.  
"Oh! I'm sorry, it's off over to the right." Again, waving his hand, he smiled broadly, calmingly. The black-clad man nodded slightly in recognition and shuffled pensively to the small structure built into the wall. Taking off his hat, he sat silently on the bench inside. He could barely see through the screen - enough to know no one was inside. Getting comfortable, he brushed his hair behind his ears and waited. About two minutes later, someone stepped into the accompanying room. Mumbling, he began.  
"Bless me father, for I have sinned..."  
"Konbanwa, my child. What is it that is plaguing your soul?" The voice was consoling and familiar. The poor sinner began fidgeting with his fingers, humbly embarrassed.  
"Father... I..." He gave a great sigh. "...Have lusted..."  
"Oh, that's a common sin. Are you in a vowed relationship?"  
"You mean married?"  
"Mmm, yes."  
"No, no, and I never have been." The priest's tone now turned confused.  
"Well, back in more chaste times, lust of any kind would've been considered a surmountable wound to your chances at everlasting peace, but today... Well, if you're not devoted to someone, then the church doesn't consider that a major sin."  
"But I thought here at St. Barnard's, you were more... strict... conservative?"  
"That's true, my child, but we've seen a steady drop in our fellowship and our funding... Ashamedly, we've..." He cleared his throat. "...broadened our world-view."  
"Oh. So, that's it? Am I now forgiven?"  
"Um, usually we delve a little deeper into the nature of one's particular sin... So as to prevent further temptation. Where was this woman you lusted after?" The confessor grew noticeably more nervous.  
  
"Well, father... it wasn't exactly a woman..."  
"Oh, I understand... Please don't take offense, but was it a man, child, or animal?"  
"What?! Oh, no no, father... Um, it was um, a man. Am I now going to hell?" The cloistered one repressed a laugh.  
"Um, oh no, not if you're sorry for your sins. You are, right?"  
"Oh, yes father... Can I ask..." He trailed off.  
"If?"  
"If you've ever felt like this... I mean, probably not - but... I feel so alone and I just... can't help myself." The priest let loose a sigh.  
"Contrary to modern trends, not all Catholic priests join the ministry to escape their urges for children. But... to answer  _your_  particular question," he was stalling for time. "I... actually joined the church to get away from such feelings towards men. I don't know how to help you in your particular situation... Because I ended up running away from mine and seeking refuge here." Defeat was evident in his voice.  
"And has it helped? I mean, is that what I should do?"  
"Each person has to chose their own path in life... Instead of joining the church, perhaps counseling would work for you... Or distancing yourself from your obsession - like - like working at a women's college..."  
"You didn't answer my first question, father..." His tone was nearly menacing.  
"Well, I certainly have found refuge and solace here..."  
"But?" The priest felt oddly trapped.  
"...But... I still feel those empty urges... I thought..."  
"...That every disconsolate man that walked through those massive doors wouldn't trigger your need to sympathize and simultaneously turn you on?" This 'sinner' was getting bold.  
"...I, uh, believe we're closing soon. Um, it's pretty late at night and the snow's just going to get worse-"  
"Father..."  
"- _and_  you are forgiven. Bless you, my child. Please return this Sunday for mass, we just bought a new set of Bibles..." The priest's red hair could be seen moving rapidly out of the confessional. The black haired man opened his own door and followed the retreating form as fast as modesty would allow. Just past the right hand line of pews, he caught up and spun the father around.  
"Izzy?!" The man's eyes were wide and white with shock.  
"Ken!?" The priest's face matched his swept back hair and the pew cushions in a startling crimson. For a few moments, both stood with their mouths hanging open. Tight laughter followed.  
"I... never expected... What are you doing in Kitami? I thought you went to..." Ken shook his head, trying to jog a memory.  
"Boston. Yeah, I did, but half-way through college, I - found my place here and..." He waved his hand expansively and Ken pursed a small laugh. "What are you doing here? Not still in Tokyo?"  
"Uh, evidently not... I... got my B.S. and a job was waiting for me here." A pause. "Well... that's what I tell everybody..." Father Izumi was confused. "Truth is... I got into some trouble after high school and - and am trying to start fresh here. ...Not exactly succeeding..." His voice was a whisper and his downcast eyes told Izzy not to push the subject.  
"So, do you have someplace to stay? I mean, it's not summer out there."  
"Tonight? Not exactly." A tired smile played across his lips.  
"Then, I guess it's my job to offer uh... hospitality." His arms spread in a gesture. "The two other minor priests are away on a fund-raising/charity trip, so you can occupy one of their beds." Ken followed through a different door in the paneling.  
"Then who was that older man I saw earlier?"  
"Father Hiromiya? He's the bishop here and - due to his age - he thought it best if he didn't venture out in this weather."  
"Good idea." Ken really wasn't paying attention, marveling at the ornate woodwork on the myriad of hallways they were passing through and the back of a certain priest's head. "I thought you alluded to some financial trouble, but this place is unbelievable."  
"Well, that's only recently... This church was built in the 50's during the American occupation and although the budget is steadily dropping, we're nowhere near to having to sell it." Another expansive wave. A smirk, hardly benign, rippled across the taller man's face. "...And here's the bedroom we share. Father Achikawa is nearly as tall as you are; there's a bathroom to the left," he followed the pointed finger, "so you can shower in there and borrow his night-clothes." Ken took the tan cotton of the shirt and slacks from Koushiro.  
"Thanks, Izz... I, um..." He paused and smiled, "feel better already."  
  
____________________  
  
  
  
  



	2. Into The Breach

Let's not waste time. Graphic situation included in this chapter. Ie: lemon, yaoi, sex, etc.  
Problems? Then go read something else. :)  
As always, reviews are welcomed. Don't be shy.  
  
  
  
  
  
The hot water felt so good. He had it turned up high enough that it nearly scalded. Here, in the priests' private chambers, the woodwork was more humble and the fixtures in the bathroom spoke of a different era. Example: the tile was avocado. The knobs squeaked with lime and age as Ken twisted them shut and began to dry himself. He still couldn't get over the initial shock: Koushiro was a man of the cloth. And not just any priest either, no - he was gay. Well, maybe it didn't count if he never acted on his desires... Still, he was amazed. Izzy had always dreamed of being the next Bill Gates and this place wasn't exactly wired. Not to mention the vow of poverty he took! So maybe he didn't know as much about his distant friend as he thought. Ken stopped dressing and looked in the unclean mirror. Was Izzy shocked as well? He hadn't become the Fortune 500 success story that everyone bet on. He hadn't even stayed on the right side of the law - or sexual orientation. He slipped the heavy sweatshirt over his head; a little small, but it fit okay. His thin fingers ran through wet hair. Oh, well, better get it over with.  
  
Izzy was already under his blankets, not feeling the need to shower. Acting a tad embarrassed, Ken shuffled in a subdued manner to the closest bed and crawled in.  
"I don't think a mattress has ever felt this good," he admitted with shut eyes. "I really owe you for this Iz - Ooh, or should I call you 'father'?" Ken opened one eye, rebuking his casual speech.  
"No, don't worry Ken, you knew me before I was ever a 'father'. Iz is just fine." He rolled over and flipped off the light.  
"What about Koushiro?" The room was now dark and hid the priest's expression. Koushiro  _was_  his name, but he always felt it conveyed more meaning and formality than just 'Izzy' and preferred that his friends not use it.  
"Oh, I don't know. I've never really liked to be called that..."  
"That's because no one calls you that. Besides, I think it's nicer than 'Izzy'." His eyes stared for any sign of agreement, but Izzy only folded his arms under his head. He tried again. "Do you mind if I touch on a sore subject again?" Now Izzy turned his head to stare back.  
"Like what?"  
"Like... how I get rid of these feelings... You haven't had any luck?" He rolled his head back to focus on the ceiling before answering.  
"Luck... Apart from not believing in luck anymore... The only 'luck' I've had is in keeping my vows: poverty, chastity, etc... etc... So, truthfully, no. I'm not the best person to ask for advice on this - you'd be better off talking to Father Hiromiya. No, my life is a mess: don't ask me." Ken stuck his lower lip out.  
"How can you say something like that? Your life isn't a mess... Look at me! 171 IQ and I'm answering people's questions about car batteries for a living. I... I haven't spoken to my parents in three years... got kicked out of my apartment three weeks ago 'cause I can't make rent 'cause I had to pay a fine for indecent exposure 'cause I got completely wasted several days in a row and on top of it a bill for when some decent person hauled my ass out of a puddle of my own puke and into a hospital bed to have my stomach pumped... You?" Ken paused. "I've always looked up to you anyway... Perfect grades, loving family, good looks, a future... And now you've set the bar even higher. They should make you into a saint!" He cracked a smile at his own cleverness. "I mean, you've become something everyone should aspire to." A faint blush danced across his cheeks. Izzy could only reply in a warning tone.  
"Ken, you shouldn't-"  
"Say what? The truth? That you're a shining beacon of hope for the rest of us slobs? That you're the reason I..." He caught himself and stopped.  
"Huh? Reason you...?" A long silence ensued. "Ken, it's okay. You can say whatever you want... The reason you..." Izumi's voice turned soft while Ichijouji's took a bitter tone.  
"Needed to confess." He was no longer looking at Koushiro.  
  
  
Perhaps Izzy wasn't a genius, technically. His intelligence quotient registered at a mean 138 when he tested for it senior year. But that by no means meant he wasn't smart. He'd gotten into Massachusetts' technology institute without much hassle and he'd deciphered the current situation with lightning speed. Now how best to handle it? What seemed like minutes passed sans speaking. Ken spoke first.  
"I'm sorry, Koushiro. This... I didn't mean for this to happen. You were the last person in the world I wanted to abase myself before. You-you have to trust me when I say that I'd no idea you were here." They continued to glare at their respective patches of ceiling. "It's just... I had to talk to someone and-and you're all that's been on my mind for..." He sighed through his nose, "...years. Ever since I met you... All those long years ago..." Ken sat up. "I'm sorry, Koushiro. This is... um, I should leave..." He pulled the blankets off and began to stand. A hand on his shoulder prevented him.  
"Don't even think about going. ...Sure, this situation is - awkward - but, that in no way means I'm letting you kick yourself out into a snowstorm." The forceful black eyes more than the warm hand kept him on his bed. Izzy lay back down after Ken did, closing his eyes in resolution. The sun-shaped wall clock ticked off the seconds, both men curling into their blankets.  
"Thank you, Koushiro. I really mean that." He might've been asleep, but Izzy smiled slightly and nodded his head. The cold wind howled angrily in their dreams.  
  
  
  
In the soft not-yet-morning light that slid through the curtains, Ken woke. The room was still dark enough to make colors indistinguishable and the clock's ticks mingled with the peaceful breath of an angel. Peeling his eyes from the slightly mussed head, he squinted at the door. No light shone through: Hiromiya was still asleep. Shifting back, his eyes focused and stored a particularly pleasant memory.  
  
Forcing his hand over, he ran his cold fingers through Koushiro's hair. The man was still sleeping, so he drew a line down his jaw and held the end of it up, breathing softly on his parted lips. He swallowed the rest of his fear and brushed his mouth against Izzy's. So wonderful. ...He needed this. If only he stayed asleep, he could pretend the contact was accepted and leave placated. But Izzy didn't stay asleep. Ken knew he woke him when the silent lips began to move under his.  
They didn't move away, no, they kissed him back - softly, then with insistency. Ken didn't protest, why would he? They pulled each other tighter and freed their curious tongues. The black-haired man pulled away, reaching to nip at Koushiro's neck, but the instant their mouths separated, Izzy truly woke up. He pushed Ken away and sat straight up, gasping at what he'd done. Ken shrank back at the horrified expression, hoping for more forgiveness. Izzy ran his hands through his own hair, trying to sort out the edges of a dream and reality.  
"I'm really sorry, Koushiro." Looking like a lost puppy, he tried his hardest. Izzy closed his eyes, swearing under his breath. He looked up, trying to soothe the other's despondency.  
"It's okay, it's... it's my fault, too." His mouth tried to ask Ken why, but didn't dare; he knew the answer.  
"I just couldn't stop... It was all too perfect and you..." He inhaled, aborting his reason. The frown uncreased and his lips broke into a smile. "It was wrong of me, true. And I'm sorry for my thoughtlessness... But that was the happiest I've been in years. I know I'll probably regret this, but I have to say that waking up next to you is the closest to heaven..." He stopped, dropping his head in shame and blushing heatedly. Anything,  _anything_  at all to break the silence... Koushiro stood, walking briskly to the bathroom.  
"I'm gonna take a shower..." Mumbling, he pulled the door behind him.  
Why did he do that? Why was he so stupid? Why did he feel that he had to comfort this derelict, this... Ken. He connected with the younger man in so many ways, now they'd grown far apart and all he wanted was his old friend back. Or more? He was a man of God, he was supposed to rise above these feelings at the very least. Why was the thought of curling up in those arms so persistent? He undressed and turned on the water. He was weak, he admit it. Better to give in to the thoughts by himself in the safety of the warm water.  
  
Ken paced across the small room. Too forward. Stupid imbecile. Seeing Koushiro again was screwing every thing up, making his mind and heart race. Then you had to go and kiss him, didn't you? Ken reached the bathroom door and stopped. Leave before he gets out? What a horrible way to thank him for his hospitality. His trademark smirk appeared and he turned the knob silently. Being cunning had its rewards.  
  
Koushiro gritted his teeth together. Even all alone, he was so embarrassed, so ashamed. The timid little boy he'd never grown out of let his inhibitions slack, holding on to the shower with one hand; letting the other wander where it willed. The temperature dropped suddenly and a horrible draft invaded his privacy. Curious, he turned around. Ichijouji had opened the shower curtain, freezing him in place.  
"Ken! What the hell are you doing?!" He tried to cover up desperately, but with nowhere to go, he let the genius gaze at his body.  
Then he noticed the other's lack of clothing.  
"Ken, I'm serious. What. Do. You. Think. You're. Doing?" He started to panic as the black-haired man stepped in and re-closed the curtain. Warm air and the sound of falling water insulated Koushiro's faint gasp as Ken began kissing the curve of his neck. Ken wrapped his arms around the frightened frame, stroking the tightened muscles in his back. Despite the screaming of his brain, Izzy relaxed in a great sigh and let himself be pushed against the tile. He was so weak. Small threads of lust were weaving their way through his veins. Slowly, his arms began to trace Ken's spine and in return, one of Ken's roaming hands reached the growing source of his turmoil. Koushiro uttered a small moan as Ken began stroking him. His lips left the redhead's neck and he kneeled, softly kissing down his stomach. If Izzy's brain were still functioning, he would've been calmed with the fact that the only other person was all the way across the building sleeping, far out of earshot. But it wasn't. Ken spared no time in filling his mouth with Koushiro's erection, making him moan loudly.  
Uninhibited.  
  
He was so good at this. Oh my God... Oh, and somehow it seemed so right, so perfect. After all these years of being apart, mostly alone, he didn't want to ruin it now by speaking. In a wonderful haze he mumbled the other man's name over and over, tipping his head back to the indoor rain and wrapping his fingers in Ken's wet black hair. His  _hair_. It was longer, yes, but so smooth and sleek. Amidst the pleasure, he felt Ken's fingers reaching around him, exploring. Everything was too much. Too wonderful. Ken's expert tongue and mouth traced wet hot trails of pleasure in every perfect, excruciating spot. Licking over his throbbing veins, nipping gently around his sensitive head. His legs tightened as he felt himself losing control. His hands left the wall and grasped tightly onto the bent shoulders as his orgasm arrived. How could this be wrong? He shut his eyes tightly and rode out the beautiful moment.  
  
Ken stood, climbing back up the shaking body. He'd never seen anyone look so... fragile. Koushiro was slowing his rapid breath, brows drawn together tightly. Why didn't he stop when Izzy wanted him to? When he was begging him to leave? His conscience whispered the question and he shoved it away, catching the open mouth in a deep kiss.  
  
Koushiro could taste his own body in Ken's mouth and suddenly everything congealed. Shit, shit, shit! He shouldn't be here, in his shower, in his embrace. Out of pure decency, he kissed Ken back, reaching around behind him to turn off the water and tactfully escape this dream. It WAS his dream, but should've stayed that way. Oh, how he was weak...  
"Koushiro, I love you." And getting weaker. He turned around, pausing in opening the curtain. Blue eyes showed carefully unearthed hope. He reached back into the shower to cup Ken's slender chin.  
"I know I shouldn't, but I love you, too." Honestly, he couldn't think of anything else to say. It was the truth, but he winced inwardly as Ken smiled. The taller man stepped halfway out of the shower to plant a soft kiss on Koushiro's lips.  
"Then let's not tell anyone, shall we?" He whispered into the short hair.  
  
  
______________________  
  
Notes: The catholic church in the city of Kitami is NOT called St Barnard's, it's simply Kitami Catholic Church. I'm using my literary freedom, okie dokie? :)  
  
Until next week, dear readers...  
  



	3. The Descent

  
Short glossary:  
cassock - big skirt type thing priests wear  
zucchetto - skull cap thingy  
mozzetta - cape do-dad that's worn around the shoulders (partially covers cassock)  
  
A big thank you to Mr Damien Broderick - sci-fi master and source of all catholic knowledge.  
  
Warnings/Thoughts: Very explicit violence and sex. You've been warned.   
This one's for Uncle Minotaur. ;)  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
He couldn't meet anyone's eyes.  
"This is the body of Christ-" He placed another wafer in another pious mouth. "This is the body-" A mouth. "This is the body-" A mouth. He couldn't meet their eyes, some innocent, some filled with guilt. Like he was. "This is the body-" Another parishioner kneeled in front of him. "This is the..."  
Kneeling. Black hair. Blue eyes. Open, moist mouth. Craving what he'd put inside...  
But it wasn't Ken. Panicked, he turned to Bishop Hiromiya, "I'm suddenly very dizzy, could you please continue?" The aging priest nodded in worry, taking the wafers from two pale, shaking hands. Izzy headed through the near-hidden door, not stopping or thinking until he reached his room. He collapsed on the bed, gripping his smoothed hair in both hands. "Forgive me, heavenly father..." Izzy tried breathing deeply to calm himself down. Why couldn't he stop thinking? He closed his eyes in frustration, but popped them open again quickly, an image forming behind his closed lids. Oh, it was a wonderful image, but... He couldn't think like that. Not about anyone.  _Especially_  not about Ken! Yet it was all he wanted to think about. He caught himself smiling, wishing Ken were here again. Picturing the slender man standing against the opposite wall, a 'why don't you come fuck me' look on his face...  
NO! Koushiro stood, straightening out the bed sheets and picking things up around the room. Have to do something. Anything. Get mind off Ken. He grabbed the broom, sweeping fervently.  
  
Izzy dropped the damp paper towel in the trash. There. He'd killed two hours and cleaned a few rooms. Things looked much better. He felt much better.  
"Am I interrupting?" The smooth voice made him gasp silently, not needing to turn around to connect it with a face. Ken.  
"Ken?" He turned around anyway, staring at him in partial shock. After he'd worked so hard to clean his mind, Ken was leaning against the door frame languidly, a sly smile on his lips and his eyes inspecting Koushiro with avid interest. " _Why are you here?!_ " It couldn't come out sounding any worse than it did, but he didn't care. Izzy narrowed his eyes, trying to scare him off.  
  
Ken chuckled softly, he wouldn't be gotten rid of so easily.  
"To see you. Among other things." The mischievous smile grew, and he slowly slunk towards the priest.  
"Ken, I don't want to see you. Please leave."  
"But isn't it your duty to help those less fortunate? Don't throw me out, Koushiro, I'm begging you..." Humorous sarcasm wasn't working, and Izzy continued to avoid his steady approach. Not thinking, he let himself be trapped in a corner. Slightly panicked, he looked for a way around Ken. But he saw Izzy's shifting eyes and caught his arms, pressing him into the drywall. "Don't  _make me_  beg, Kou." Izzy fought against his grip until Ken started kissing his neck, softly working down to his collar. He closed his eyes, wanting to die - wanting Ken to continue. Izzy lost control of his body, collapsing and letting Ken guide him to the tile floor. He was shaking slightly, and the younger man kissed his face sloppily. Something tugged in the back of his mind. This was wrong. No, more than that-  
"Ken... Ken!" He pushed himself up so he was sitting. "The... the door's open..." He looked sheepish, and felt worse. The black haired man stood, nudging the door closed, and returned to his prey, eyes never leaving their lock on the priest's face. He really didn't care whether or not Koushiro was okay with his plans. Despite it, he knelt next to the frightened body, whispering false words of comfort.  
"Please Koushiro. I need you. I'm in hell without you." He sucked on his earlobe lightly, wrapping his arms around his love, laying him on the floor. "I told you before and I'll say it again so you understand: I love you." Ken hit a certain little spot behind Izzy's ear with his tongue, making him writhe in pleasure. It was that simple - Koushiro was his.  
  
Sucking on his sensitive throat, Ken removed his own clothes, then started on Koushiro's. The collar was an obstacle. He pushed his fingers through the gelled hair, across the spot where his zucchetto should've been perched, to the back of his neck. To the spot where the two ends of the white band of fabric met. He pulled it off slowly, dipping his tongue to the newly exposed tender depression on Koushiro's neck. The red haired man grunted softly, his black eyes wide open and focused on the ceiling. He didn't care anymore what Ken did to him.  
As long as no one knew.  
Ken undid the clasp that held the edges of the mozzetta around Koushiro's shoulders. If no one knew, it was alright. With the nimble fingers of a well-paid typist, the pure white starched shirt flew unbuttoned across the room as well. Ken's fingers were so cold as they ran feverishly down the older man's ribs. Izzy shivered, a decidedly sooky smile set on his lips. Right and wrong, who the fuck cared? He was breathing through his mouth in swift pants as Ken's agile tongue departed to the south from his navel. Who really cared? He wasn't even aware of his cassock being pulled away from his thighs.  
  
The cold tile on his skin shook him back to a harsh reality, naked on the floor.  
"Ken, I don't know if I-"  
"Nonsense." His arms were on either side of his chest, propping himself up so he could stare into the scared eyes. "You know. You've known all along. You know what you want." The long black hair spilled across Koushiro's white shoulders, kissing him deeply. "I can feel what you want." Izzy blushed blood red at this, throbbingly aware of what he referred to. What was now cupped in Ken's warm fingers.  
  
Somehow, Ken must've been planning on this, planning on the fact that Koushiro would be distracted by his kisses and one-handed fondling. He gasped as something very cold and smooth crawled around his sensitive orifice. Ken's cold fingers spread electric ice through his nerves, burning fresh memories of sensation into his mind. Koushiro ground his hips against the hand that was probing his sensitive opening, unable to control himself. Why did this feel SO good? Izzy ran his fingertips over Ken's lips and chin appreciatively, his mouth smiling beneath Izzy's fingers when the younger man moaned with his ministrations. Sufficiently satisfied at his work, Ken pulled back, staring piercingly into his lover's black eyes. Something changed in them. Something.  
Izzy stared back, a small sliver of desire dilating his pupils. Ken smirked, wriggling down his chest a little, anticipation flowing like heat throughout his body. Izzy licked his lips; knowing what was coming. Ken pulled Koushiro into his bare lap, lifting the priest's legs over his shoulders, positioning his own hard and evident need. Ken began to push into him slowly, all his energy and direction focused into a few inches of space. Koushiro let his head descend to the floor, his eyes closing. How could he breathe? His white body shook with desire as he was penetrated, slowly. Ken abruptly stopped, waiting.  
  
The dark-haired genius knew how much this could hurt without preparation - but Ken was never one to show his sensitive or compassionate side - even now... and he felt bad about it. He was surprised that Koushiro hadn't gasped or at least gritted his teeth. Reaching down to Izzy's face, his little finger trailed over the thin cheeks, waiting to catch any fallen tears. There weren't any. Koushiro's eyes shot open.  
"What are you waiting for?" he panted quietly. Yes, there was that desire again, a strange hunger. Like for the first time in ages, a thirsty man grasping clean, blue water. He kissed just below his delicate knee hotly, licking at it sensually, holding Koushiro's gaze. And started working back and forth slowly. Izzy closed his eyes again, squeezing them shut tightly. Ken rubbed against a tender spot of tissue deep inside and he half choked on a whimper. He brought his hands to Ken's thighs, bracing himself as he frantically encouraged the dispossessed man by meeting his thrusts in a bouncing fashion - forcing each movement further, deeper. The rhythm beat inside his brain. So. Good. So. Wonderful. He couldn't think, pleasure and need blinding his mind. Ken reached down, through their sweat, thumb caressing Izzy's neglected member. The redhead moaned, opening his mouth to let it out - vast and audible. He was being assaulted on all fronts; and he couldn't have been happier. Gone were the thoughts of shame and chastity. Gone. Like they were never there at all.  
  
Abruptly, he knew the other man was nearing his peak. Ken forgot completely about what his hands were doing, grasping onto Izzy's thighs and losing himself in panicked motion. A black wall of fire creeped in on his vision, crying out the other man's private, delicate name that no one was allowed to speak. All his wonderful plans and dreams exploded into reality. Ken's thrusts were making the world spin for Koushiro. It was everything. It was his fingertips, his clammy palms, his bare hips. Everything. He bit his lip, craning his neck back, releasing all his personal pain onto Ken's stomach.  
  
  
  
"Mmmm. My Koushiro." Ken pulled back from the embrace they had shared for the past few minutes. Calming down, descending to reality. He swept his fingers through the short hair possessively. "You do know that you are now officially mine." He got no reaction from the other, his heavy lidded eyes staring out into space. Ken smiled, using his index finger to pat Izzy's nose. "No, no, see. This clinches it - you're mine. No one else will have you. I get to keep you all to myself." Koushiro kept his stony face, sitting up and putting his clothes back on. Ken sat up, curling his knees to his chest as he watched. Now that he was dressed, Koushiro turned to the door, not glancing back.  
"Ken. I. Never. Want to see you again." He said it as evenly as he could, a little self-hatred and Ken-hatred mistakenly sliding in. Ken just smiled.  
"Oh, now here we go again." Life was all sillies and laughter as he feigned a bad impression of his lover. "I'm all pious and pure. I don't want you, Ken, even though I do. Blah, blah, blah. Kiss me, Ken. Hold me, Ken. Fuck me on this fucking floor, Ken." Koushiro spun around, eyes blazing.  
"WHAT!?! ...Don't EVER speak to me, Ken! Don't come here again. If you can't... If you can't even..." Tears threatening to spill, Izzy marched from the room, slamming the door as loud as he'd let himself behind him.  
  
Ken wasn't fazed. Still naked, he stood up, slipping on his black clothes. Lacing up his boots. Izzy was so silly. He'd come back to him. He'd have to. He had no choice.  
Before he left too, he glanced around the room. Izzy would have a hard time coming back here, wouldn't he? Ken grinned, noting all the cracks in the ceiling and incongruities in the crown molding that a pair of black eyes must've focused on during the prelude. The images would've been burned into his brain. He laughed softly as he closed the door, walking to the back exit. He really didn't want to hurt Izzy. This train of thought kind of surprised him. But it was true. Maybe he'd be nice to him for the next few days and leave him alone like he wanted. Izzy made him happy. Few things did that anymore.  
  
So he'd be nice to him for the next few days.  
  
  
  
"Father?" The byproduct of his shame flowed down his cheeks. "Bishop Hiromiya?" There was only one thing to do. Fess up. It had worked in the past, letting all his shame go, cleansing himself. It HAD worked in the past. Now all he needed to do was find the elderly father. Find him and destroy his pure beliefs. Izzy shook his head, how could he do that to him? People here in Kitami didn't know the depraved flavor of his inner desires.  
  
But he needed peace. He needed to get Ken and his acts out of his head. Out of his... heart? Of course, he'd always held a special place for Ken there: they had so much in common. But the past few years, isolation from the beautiful genius... Absence truly did make the heart grow fonder.  
"Father Hiromiya?" So he wouldn't use his name. No one had to know WHO had helped him sin. He stopped in the hallway outside the father's room. For all his haste and hate, he had enjoyed himself. He had enjoyed the immense pleasure and attention Ken poured on him. The irreplaceable feeling of worth that he gave him when he pressed him into the wall of the shower, the floor of the rectory, showing how he didn't want to-couldn't begin to stop himself. Neither had Izzy. And he had enjoyed those moments when Ken wrapped his arms around him, murmuring soft undecipherable things into his skin. The security, the love that burned through him everywhere he touched.  
  
Koushiro sighed heavily, closing his eyes. Yes, great. But there was still his conscience. Telling him he'd betrayed the second, no third, family willing to take him in and accept him. He walked the last few feet and knocked on the door.  
"Bishop?" He had to be here, the rest of the church was empty. Poor old father, service wore him out easily and Izzy pushed the door open quietly, trying not to wake him. Sure enough, there he was. He smiled a little, relived. Then confused. Why was the bishop kneeling in front of his Holy water font? He walked up, reaching out to gently shake him awake. His shoulder felt funny and he didn't respond. Izzy's eyes trailed down to his hands, wrapped around the edge of the basin like claws. What in hell...? Starting to worry, Izzy pulled him away from the ceramic, jumping back like he'd been struck.  
The... the... he'd... He stared as the father's body fell to the carpeting, in an undignified heap. His eyes bulged, his mouth contorted in a silent scream. A light trickle of blood escaped his blue nose and his celibate, flaccid penis protruded from his vestments, screaming at the obscenity of the scene. One of Izzy's hands ran to his mouth. He was still trying to put it all together. Reflexively, he spun around, eyes darting to every corner. Someone... Were they still here? Raw fear screamed at his brain:  _you stupid fuck_ , get the hell out of here! What if they're waiting for you, too?! The sick freaks that did this - waiting to feed their fetishes on another victim. He threw the door open, bunching up his cassock and running like there was no tomorrow. Barely making the corner, he threw the door open to his bedroom and snatched the phone. Three little numbers and five little seconds later he heard a sweet female voice streaming through the phone line.  
"110, what's your emergency?"  
"He... he..." Izzy was out of breath. "Bishop... Hiromiya... he's... dead."  
  
  
  



	4. Aftermath

  
  
He's dead? Yes, my friends, he's dead. As a doornail. Hiromiya and original characters are copyright me. If you try to steal them, I'll hunt you down like a dog. :)  
Notes on last chapter - 110 is the emergency number in Japan for police. If you need an ambulance, dial 119. Just a good travel tip. What can I say, I'm a giver. ^_^  
  


 

  
  
  
  
  
All he could do was shake his head. A policeman with a thick pad of yellow paper was jotting things as he asked Izzy for information.  
"Did you see who did this?" No. "How long was the bishop by himself?" I don't know. "Do you have any idea who would've wanted to kill him?" No. No, I don't.  
  
Finally frustrated, the man flipped the notebook closed and walked away to talk with the other detectives. Though hardly innocent, Izzy's eyebrows drew together and the crusty remnants of tears gathered on his lashes. If only... if only I hadn't been with Ken. I would've stopped this defamation - horror. He'd still be alive - I wouldn't be guilty. Guilty with Ken, guilty by letting him die.  
  
He stood up, walking over to the basin of holy water, now tainted a light pink with the priest's blood. Two workers from the coroner's had taken out the dead body, wrapped it in a thick black rubber bag. But his face played back in Izzy's mind, reflected in the mirror of the water. His face. So full of terror. His body... No- He closed his ears to the buzz of crime cameras and chatter. Closed his eyes to the room. He could picture the murderer, pushing Hiromiya's head down, holding it beneath the water as he kicked and struggled. Making him suck in the liquid death when he couldn't hold out any longer...  
He gritted his teeth. Jumped out of his chair, and ran out of the room.  
  
He didn't stop until he reached his bedroom. Right after mass - it could've been ANYONE in there.  _Anyone..._  but it was HIS fault. Fooling with earthly, sinful pleasures, while another man - a better man - was defiled and slaughtered.  
  
Why?  
  
  
  
  
Ken shuffled through the snow banks to the front of the house. The white stuff fell through his boot collars, freezing his toes. A pink note of structural condemnation was stapled to the door of the ruined building. He tore it off - stupid society. Who did they think he was anyway? Some moronic derelict without enough sense in his head to know the building risked collapsing on itself? Like he had to be warned? Like he couldn't make decisions for himself?!  
  
He crumpled it up, tossing it into the gutter, flow frozen into a small river of crystal. He didn't need one motherfucking bastard telling him what to do. He closed the door as much as it would behind him. So why was he in such a bad mood? Everything had gone well. Koushiro had... He had... And  _everything_  was perfect. Feeling a little better now that the wind was locked outside, he shuffled through the garbage on the floor, the garbage on the stairs, up into his room. This house was a fairly popular crackhouse, but he'd staked out this room as his own. NOBODY was getting it away from him.  
  
Falling back on well-groomed manners, he unlaced his boots by the doorway, careful not to track any moisture and dirt in with him. The floor was clean here, greying boards exposed and swept clean. His mattress lay in the corner, and he flopped down on it, letting gravity have its way with him. No, he WAS happy now. He didn't even need that junk tonight. Koushiro had made him happy, cancel that - euphoric. There was nothing like... He'd  _given_  himself to him. He'd let him make love to him. Let him. He closed his eyes softly, if he wasn't careful, he would fall in love with him.  
  
And that wasn't according to plan.  
  
  
  
  
Achikawa and Isoroku returned three days later. But they weren't any help. They just cried and prayed - and Izzy hadn't told them about Ken. No, why should he? They weren't any older than he was and he didn't feel as guilty with them. Or as confident. So he kept it inside.   
  
Better than planned, Ken hadn't come around again. He didn't want to risk an awkward moment, confrontation between Ken and the other priests. Still, part of Izzy was worried about him - he knew he was dirt poor and the weather was cold. Cold enough to kill.  
Oh, his words! He had driven him away, and that same part of Izzy was slightly trepidatious about his actions.  
But it WAS Wednesday. There were more important things to do.  
  
Father Isoroku had insisted on delivering mass instead of Izzy; he'd seen too much this week. Izzy in return insisted on helping out in some way and was again manning the confession box. Not long after services ended, a black shadow creeped into the other half.  
"In the name of the father, the son, and the holy ghost."  
"Bless me father, for I have sinned."  
"Tell me, my child, what was it?"  
"I..." The figure, who Izzy was squinting at, trying to discern something of his features, stumbled over his words. "...saw something... bad. Something very bad."  
"And why is that your sin? What did you see?"  
"I... saw a man die." WHAT! Every neuron in his brain shot awake. Wha...?  
"Who... who did you see die?" He tried SO hard to sound as calm and condescending as possible. Was it possible? Was the murderer sitting next to him? Did he come back to the same church just to confess?  
"The... the... old father guy here." The man, who Izzy could now tell had black hair, seemed calm, trying to find a perfect description for the elderly priest.  
"You... you saw him die?" He couldn't control his voice anymore, rising into an excited yelp. He was barely sitting on the seat, ready to spring out and nab this evil man.  
"Well, I knocked on his door, but it was locked after mass. I... was looking for a... a donation." He shied into himself, trying not to spill his story, but ending up doing so anyway. "You see... father, I've been having money problems lately. I needed some money... and the church helps those in need... right?"  
"Right, right, of course, go on." Hurry up and tell me!  
"And I was gonna ask the church for some money. So... you know... I could pay my bills and all... and well... the door was locked... so I went away." The man finished his words, inflection of tone indicating that his story was over.  
"And?!" Izzy was losing patience. Obviously, the man was trying to hide something.  
"Oh, yeah. And then I came back later, cause... cause I wanted to try again... and I opened his door. It was unlocked. He was dead, leaning into the water. I was going to try and do CPR on him or something, but... if I touched him... the cops would be all over me..."  
"But you  _didn't_  kill him?"  
"Huh? No! No, I just saw him... dead." Izzy burst out of his side, yanking opening the confessor's door. The man looked up at him, white as a sheet. But courtesy and taboos were the last thing on Izumi's mind. His blazing eyes asked the only question possible.  
"Did you see who killed him?" The man, a tall and burly construction worker type, shook his head frantically. "Would you talk to the police and tell them what you DID see?"  
"What? No! No, no no. Hell no. I'm not talking to any cops. They've got it in for me... But you see father... I had to confess. Cause I saw him dead and I didn't do anything. Am I going to hell?" He almost laughed. How often he heard  _that_  question.  
"No, no, you're not. You are forgiven, but in the future, try to not step out of helping someone. Our jobs here on this earth are to help everyone. Help our neighbors, our enemies-"  
"Oh, thank you, father!" The man shook his hand firmly. "I feel so much better." He was frantic to leave, but Izzy caught his attention one more time.  
"Well thank you for coming to mass... what did you say your name was?"  
"Junich-" he hesitated. "I gotta go." The doors opened, cold wind hissing through. And he was gone.  
  
  
  
  
The father walked steadfastly down the corridor. There was important business at the other end, funaries to officiate and acolytes uninitiated. All in a day's work.  
The perfect symmetry of the checkerboard marble floor stretched out into both ends of the darkened hallway. The walls vaulted high overhead, marble angels and cherubs and devils peering down at him from their lofty perches. Smiling through their holy grimaces and malevolent come-hithers. At him. At his cloak of sin.  
Could  _everyone_  see it?  
"Come here, Izumi." What? Where was that voice? It seemed to call from everywhere at once, so unlike regular voices. It bounced around the columns and his standing figure, as if the voice was a tangible being, floating around him, all-encompassing. Oh, there was no time for that now. He continued on, vestments swaying with his feet. Yes, there was something that needed doing at the end of this infinite hall.  
"Izumi? I need to tell you something." That voice again. It quivered slightly in the baritone of old age. A hint of the Queen's English to tone it, then dead silent again. He spun around, becoming frustrated.  
"What? What do you want!?" He froze in shock or fear or... some dreadful feeling as warmth crept around his feet. His eyes bolted wide, wanting to run, but trapped firmly in their sockets. Only able to stare as his head forced them to look down. At it. At the blood pooling by his feet.  
  
Blood? Oh god, no.  
  
"Izumi, I have a favor to ask," spoken peacefully from the ceiling carvings above him, yet he began to shake in terror. It wasn't seeping, no - flowing like a faucet from his feet. He lifted each foot up to check - but he felt no pain and saw no wounds. What the hell? And now it spread gaping and wide, touching both sides of the cavernous corridor. It. was. everywhere now.  
  
Oh God...  _No..._  
  
The hallway had to be maddeningly long, but the red flood was rising now as if from some monstrous burst dam. Pouring from nowhere and touching everything. It coiled up his ankles, soaking his shoes and the bottom of his cassock. It was  _warm_. Warmer than his own body, cold and panicking. Up his calves, tracing like delicate fingers. Calling, probing, reaching, pulling up farther and those  _damned statues_  were still gloating!  
"Stop IT!" He tore his eyes away from the liquid that promised to soon suffocate him. Those dead stone eyes, hollow and sarcastic above him. Taunting him down below, soon to die, suffering every second before.  
  
"Izumi, I want you to meet a friend of mine." That voice! Again! He wanted to cry.  
"Shut up!" He was still screaming at the angels, but the voice... That fucking voice-  
"Shut up! I don't care! Shut up and  _go away!!_ " The tears broke over his reddening cheeks, the lake of blood now waist deep and soaking in, feeling its way farther against his skin as if with a mind. Scaring him for the pure joy of it.  
  
"Izumi, come over here."  
That voice- Where was it coming from? His own mind? It seemed so familiar, like a separate personality, a long lost older brother...  
"Be a good boy, Koushiro."  
  
"NOOOOOOO!!!"  
He screamed for all he was worth. His breath came nearly as fast as his heartbeat. It was dark now, but he could tell he wasn't standing anymore, he was lying on a bed. That was the first thing he was aware of. That, and that the blood had disappeared.  
"Father Izumi?"  
"Huh?"  
"Are you okay?" Achikawa's face formed in grey shades floating through the darkness of the priests' bedroom.  
"Um... yeah. I think so."  
"It sounded like you had a nightmare... Are you sure you're okay?"  
"Yeah," Ah. Reality came back down and wrapped around him like the blankets he still clutched tightly. "I'm fine. I didn't wake you, did I?"  
"Oh, don't worry about that. Just try to get some sleep."  
  
But good or bad, sleep didn't call for the young man anymore that night.  
  
  
  
  
A quick shower, some fervent prayers uttered kneeling on the side of his bed, a jog down to the basement to check on the boiler, then back up for a bite to eat. It was 7:30, and he was feeling  _so_  behind. The other fathers had woken at the standard quarter to 5, but tiptoed out without shaking him awake as well. Why? He felt guilty about sleeping in, so he resolved himself only to a piece of toast.  
Oh, screw that, he was hungry! Penance and guilt could come after a hearty breakfast.  
  
He sat down alone at the long dining table built for a rectory of brothers, bowl of Choco-puffs ready and waiting. It was one of his little pleasures, but he had so many secret little bits of happiness lately that somehow the bowl of sugared chocolate was diminished. He didn't like the feeling. Sinking into him as if every breath he now took was on the edge of shame. But he dug in anyway, hungry, human.  
"Father Izumi?" Achikawa broke through the kitchen door, urgency wet on his words.  
"Mmm?" He'd been too eager and couldn't speak, his cheeks full of food.  
"There's a policeman who wants to see you." Shit. Even though this civil servant was most likely here to help, Izzy's initial reaction was still quite common and worldly. A policeman. Coming to take me away for my sins.  
"Okay. Um, father?"  
"Yes?"  
"I just wanted to know, with all due respect, why you and Father Isoroku didn't wake me up when you both did?" A soft smile spread over the other's lips.  
"You've been under so much stress, finding him... like that... then running the church by yourself  _and_  dealing with the police. I mean at mass you-" He paused, cutting off his intense line of reasoning. "And then last night, your horrible nightmares... We ARE human, father. And we decided it would only be merciful to give you a break from morning rituals. You're not mad, are you?" He could've swore - if he was allowed to - that the other man stuck out his bottom lip.  
"Ah, no, I'm not mad. Um... Where is this policeman?" He brightened considerably.  
"Detective Abe. He's sitting in the choir."  
  
  
  
  
The scarlet light traced around his body, sitting in the pews. Church, all in session and proper, was one of the most uncomfortable places for him. But here, now, sitting with his eyes closed on the benches in the choir's alcove, letting the colored sunlight drift around him: it was different. If not for the statue of the half-naked, perpetually tormented man hanging above him, he'd be at peace.  
"Detective?" That was his cue to come out and play with the real world.  
"Yes?"  
"I'm Father Izumi - I was told you wanted to talk to me?"   
  
There he was, sitting on a bench, shrouded with light. It was uncanny, a strange aura around him like the sun coming out through the trees on a cloudy day. But then, this was St. Barnard's, and a lot of strange moments passed under its pitched roof.  
  
...But enough of that. Izzy spotted him and introduced himself to the oddly serene policeman. Catching himself to prepare and harden his emotions for the black questions.  
"I guess there's just a few things that need clearing up. Oh, by the way, I'm Lieutenant Detective Abe, Homicide/Sex Crimes division... Um... Going right into it... Did you touch the Bishop or disturb the scene at all before you called the police?" A sign, a sigh from Izzy-  
"...Yes." Izzy couldn't meet his eyes, staring at the little loops in the carpeting, screwing his mouth into a grimace. "Yes... I turned him over because he wouldn't respond. He was so stiff- But I didn't even go back into the room until after the police - I mean you - I mean - you know what I mean... arrived." Some quick jots in a water-spotted notebook.  
"This is a church, and you see people from all walks of life come through here... Have there been any suspicious or shady people who got to know the bishop very recently before he died? Or any people at all that were friends with him, any recent fallings-out..."  
"No." He was adamant about this. "No,  _everyone_  loved Hiromiya. He was like a real father to all of us and everyone in his congregation. No. Nobody."  
"Okay. Have there been any-"  
"Wait." His black eyes drew from the floor, catching the detective's green orbs in mild surprise. He was kind of cute, his eyebrows held up like that, waiting with piqued interest for Izzy's mouth to move.  
"Yes?"  
"Um, there was one person who saw the bishop dead - besides me - before I called the police."  
"Yes?..." His pencil sat at attention. This might be easier than usual.  
"It-it was some guy, down on his luck... He told me that at confession - which  _I shouldn't_  even be telling you this - but..." Ah, what was one more breach with the big G? Izzy's list was already so pock-marked and long... "He went back into the rectory, to the father's room, to ask a favor, and found him..." Izzy shook his head, trying to understand the man's true intentions, "and he ran off without telling anyone. He only came clean with me on the premise of anonymity."  
"Why didn't you tell us before?!"  
"I-I didn't know! He just told me at mass yesterday! I-I... Sorry." His black eyes lost what luster they had, falling dull and unfocused; back on the carpeting.  
  
Now Abe felt bad, pushing this man of God too hard. A sudden impulse to rub his shoulder reassuringly took hold of him. What? No. No? His smooth red hair fell into his eyes, just as dead and limp and saddened as the rest of him.  
"Sorry." That was all he could offer back. He received a quick glance up from the floor, but that was it. The priest remained silent and stony. "Did you get his name?" He didn't wish to push, but it was his job.  
"He didn't say, wouldn't say. When I asked, he nearly blurted it out, but..." He was trying to think. He  _had_  to think... "I know it started with a 'J'."  
"Good." More scribbles on the paper. "Could you give me a description?"  
"Well- I don't want you going after this guy just based on what I said... I mean, he said he didn't do anything, and we don't even know who he is, or have any evidence against him... And-and we just can't call on a city-wide manhunt - and  _why_  would a murderer come back to the same church - and  _AND_  tell everything at confession!? He might as well just handcuff himself and turn himself in with a bow and ribbon on his head!" The fire was back in Izzy's sable irises, Abe smiled quietly.  
"Yes. True. You're right except for the fact that we might not even want to make him a suspect. We might just want to interview him, see if he disturbed anything at the scene of the crime. That alone would help our investigators out considerably."  
"So he's not a suspect?"  
"I don't know." He couldn't lie - he  _couldn't_  lie. Whether or not the man was guilty remained to be seen. "But I do need a description. You did see him, right?"  
"Yes, I got out of the box to speak to him face to face."  
"Excellent." The detective was visibly excited and enthused. The general questions started. "Was he tall, short...?" Izzy's eyes glazed over watching an internal memory.  
"Tall. Much taller than me... He was- how tall are you?" He could tell there was still some bit of childhood left in the young priest, his question light and curious.  
So the detective stood up.  
"Yeah. Yeah, about three, four inches taller than you."  
"Build?"  
"Um, he looked like he did manual labor. Not an office, desk and chair type of guy."  
"So  _not_  like me?" He was still standing, and Izzy allowed himself a small laugh as the policeman sarcastically posed, bodybuilder style, in all his toned computer-worker glory.  _'Is he flirting with me?'_  The question was on both mens' minds.  
"Uh, no. Not exactly." Slightly embarrassed now, the detective sat back down.  
"Next... hair color?"  
"Black. It was really black, I could tell through the screen in the confessional, even before I saw him." As Abe wrote, Izzy noticed his hair was bleached blonde, black peeking out at the roots.  
"Great. It helps to have an attribute like that connected to a memory." At Izzy's confused silence, he glanced up from his notepad. "Helps to ensure the memory is genuine, not altered by time or other factors." His red brows twitched quizzically, questions answered, but more springing up. "Psychology major." He pointed at himself with a wink.  
"Oh! Computer Engineering major." And with a blush for the wink and for ancient history, "...unfinished. Or in progress. Whichever you prefer." He was flirting! All that was good and holy, he was flirting with a policeman!  
  
Abe smirked, unaffected on the surface but his mind in turmoil. He continued with his questions.  
"Any outstanding features? A necklace? Scar? Tattoo?"  
"Um, he had the beginnings of a beard, I remember that... But nothing else. I'm-I'm really sorry, I'm afraid I was too excited at the moment. My memory  _is_  tainted, like you said." Like the rest of him. But he wasn't about to say that.  
  
Abe had all the information he needed, and Izzy was glad the interview was over, yet sad to see this interesting man go. He was so fucking weak... And on top of that, Ken was right.  
Ken...  
"Thank you again detective. I'll be sure and call if I see him again. I'm still sorry I can't remember his name." He walked him towards the doors.  
"That's okay. And  _my_  name's Shinseki, by the way." Was he flirting with a priest? Yeah, he was... Worthless brain.  
"Izzy", he returned. "...It's just a nickname, but everyone calls me that." Shinseki leaned up against the massive doors which dwarfed him, blonde hair brushing and gel crunching softly against the wood.  
"So what's your actual name, Father Izumi?" His eyes. Green and drilling and though he didn't like the question, he liked the way he couldn't escape their grip, their depth.  
"Koushiro. But - like I said - no one calls me that." The detective nodded his head lightly, a sly smile growing on his face despite his efforts to keep it locked away. He opened the door to leave, placing a lingering, comforting hand on Izzy's shoulder.  
"Well, make sure to call me if you remember anything else." As he walked out into the falling snow he mouthed the word.  
 _Koushiro_  
  
  
  
  
  



	5. Weak

  
  
  
Lt. Detective Shinseki Abe was a delicious little invention of mine. He's in his late twenties in this story, and he's a multi-faceted character. I hope you'll grow to like him as much as I do. ~_^  
Notes: The Miranda Rights we all know and love here in the US do not technically exist in Japan. I've referenced it here only as part of my all-encompassing "literary freedom". So there. :P  
  
  
  
  
  
The door closed with a heavy thud behind the police officer. Good God - what was wrong with him?!  
  
' _I'm so stupid. ...Telling him my real name. ...Letting him toy with me, me with him. God... Why?!_ ' Izzy leaned forward into the wooden door, closed and imposing like a wall. A wall for him to bring his sins and shame to. A wall to cry for forgiveness at.  
"...Stupid." All he wanted to do was weep, unbidden images in his head of running his fingers through Shinseki's blonde hair, watching his prominent adam's apple quiver. The air thick around them and their shallow breaths, lips hovering in excited tension. Waiting for what they knew would follow.  
"Dammit!" Frustrated, he let his head bang against the door. Stupid. All these stupid thoughts. And he couldn't escape them, though he desperately wanted to. Was it Ken's fault? Was it his own all along? Was this some kind of forgotten and hidden medical condition that made him regard everyone he met as a potential sexual partner? And had he always been like this, even in grade school? He didn't remember it, but memory was so fickle, satisfying the psyche by forgetting that which made it miserable.  
  
And he was a policeman, for fuck's sake!  
  
Little tears passed down his cheeks. He didn't remember being this way! When he was out in the sinful world, this never happened. He was always perfect Izzy. Now here, in the most holy of places, he was corrupt to the core. What had happened? What was the one action somewhere in his life that had brought him down this path?  
The images.  _...Yes, Koushiro!_  No!  
  
"Father Izumi?" A soft voice crept from behind him.  
"Yes?" He cleared his throat, trying to mask the tears.  
"Um, are you alright?" No.  
"Yes, well, I think so... Not really, I just-" The other father, whom he now recognized as Achikawa, stopped him, resting his hand on his shoulder. Izzy wasn't at all comforted. But the hand bade him turn, so he did - albeit reluctantly. He hated anyone to see him vulnerable. Crying. Like this.  
"Izumi..." Achikawa's face wore a bit of shock, seeing the reddening eyes, the tears that spilt faster with embarrassment. "I'm sorry-"  
"No, no, it's not your fault. Shin- Um, Detective Abe just... I mean, it wasn't the most pleasant of interviews."  
"What did he ask?"  
"No, no, it-it wasn't that, it was just..." He didn't want to go into detail, and now that he couldn't speak, sincerely doubted he could. The quiet grey eyes probed into his own, needing to help. Existing to help. "...it's just me. I don't know, Father. Perhaps I'm having a crisis of faith." The hand moved up and down his arm in comfort.  
"I think I know how you feel. There's been an aura of impurity hanging in the church. This terrible crime, the loss of the bishop, ...everything." Izzy sadly, slowly, shook his head.  
"No, it's more than that. I felt this even before he was killed. I-I just am questioning my place within the church. Maybe this isn't my calling. Maybe you'd be better off without me..." Achikawa moved both hands to his wet cheeks, cupping his chin so Izzy had to look at him - their eyes fastened together.  
"Don't say that," the grey-eyed man whispered.  
"Why?" His eyes were beginning to fill again.  
"Because. This place wouldn't be the same without you. The church needs you. The community needs you. Father Isoroku needs you. I need you. Can't you see - this place wouldn't be the same without you." Their gaze was so intense, it shut down Izzy's thoughts. He was in that place again, where resolve and sense left him. Where he loved to be  _at_  that moment. Where he always did things that made him hate himself later.  
  
Izzy brought his face, LET his face be led by Achikawa's hands back to the other's face. He watched as Achikawa's eyes closed in reflex, watched as he kissed the man he'd slept next to for so long.  
  
Then watched the reaction unfold.  
  
"Father Izumi?" Those grey eyes were open now, shock radiating through his pupils. "I..."  
No. Shit. He hated himself again. He would burn in hell and would sincerely enjoy it. Fuck this.  
"I-I-I'm sorry! I- I wasn't thinking and I  _assumed_  and I- Forgive me!! I..." The tears! He couldn't hold them back and he left Achikawa standing dumbstruck by the doors, bolting for the false sense of security the priests' quarters held. He ran through the hallways, blind to anything outside of his turmoiled mind. Isoroku was sitting on his bed, reading from the Bible as he swung through the door. No! He'd didn't want to deal with anybody now, especially someone in the midst of their own piousness.  
  
He ran into the bathroom, fixing the lock behind him, safe for now with the tile and his sobs.  
  
  
  
  
The day was bright and welcoming, but he shut out the sun's clamor of happiness. There were few things to be happy about.  
One: he'd woken up in that  _same_  room in a sour mood. Two: he didn't have enough cash in his pocket for a decent meal - forced into eating a greasy Egg McBreakfast. And three: he hadn't seen Izzy in over a week and now there were five or six policemen buzzing around an apartment building near where he worked/dealt/lived.  _Beautiful_  day.  
  
He tried to look unassuming as he passed them by, but curiosity got a hold of him and he had to slow down and gawk at the activity. Two were on cell phones and radios, no doubt in contact with their superiors, speaking in the dry, quickstep pace that came with the badge. One was on the left, dealing with passerby like himself who'd gotten a little too close and a little too inquisitive. Another stood on the right, doing the same job. Then there were the two coming down the steps of the brick building, handcuffed perp between them still struggling lightly and saying things under his breath that could and would be used against him in a court of law. The last descended behind them, sullenly nursing an arm that must've gotten injured.  
  
Poor bastard.  
  
Ken wasn't sure who he was referring to - the injured policeman or the black haired captive. Over the years, he had grown to see both sides of the story, and was only recently beginning to wonder which side he'd take. As a child, he'd always loved power. Yes, even after the whole emperor bit was dead and done and nothing but a deep wound inside his heart.  
Power. The police had that. Legality and justice was on their side, the defenders of society. And he'd wanted to be them. Even if it didn't mean shooting it out in a tense and satisfying gunfight with a crazed lunatic but instead sitting at some desk, asking after a stolen car. It was the badge, it was the gun, it was the honor and title that society bestowed upon you and that you were more than obliged to do your damnedest carry out.  
  
But that hadn't happened, now had it, Kenny-boy?  
  
And now he stared at the man in custody, his head being guided - forced - into the back of the black and white. Just another misunderstood soul, down on his luck, trying to get by with any means necessary in a wild, blood-sucking world that didn't give you a second chance.  _He'd_  gotten a second chance, even though he was less deserving than anyone.  
  
Whose heart wouldn't go out to him? The man in handcuffs was probably living paycheck to paycheck - if that - perhaps feeding the leech of child support or simply an unemployable bastard, the only joy in an otherwise bleak life being provided to him in powder form by one of the competitors to yours truly. What a shame. It would be redundant to say he felt pity, but he did. Pity to the perp, jealousy and contempt to the cops.  
  
And yet there wasn't too much pity residing in his heart. The guy had made one too many mistakes. It didn't take a genius to outsmart the donut squad. He was living proof that cleverness was all it took to get away with your crimes.  
Ken continued on his way, peeling his eyes from the spectacle of flashing lights. The day was wasting itself and he needed to make a few bucks. He wasn't up to feeling compassionate anymore.  
  
  
  
  
"Sit  _down_!" So he did. Rather heavily though, because he was sick of these guys and their holier-than-thou attitude.  
"You're going to talk, okay? Because if you don't, life is going to be much, much more miserable for you to slog through, got it?"  
"Meh."  
"I don't think he understands, do you?" The first man's voice was edgy and not to be trifled with, but he didn't care.  
"No, I don't think he does. I don't think he understands that if we don't hear  _exactly_  what we want, he'll be spending every single one of his golden years as first-string bitch to the biggest, wickedest guy we can find. How'dya like that? We'll set you up with a grade A cell mate!"  
"Why don't you start asking me, and we'll find out?" Junichiro was acting far tougher than he felt, sitting handcuffed to a cold hard metal chair, being peered down at and pecked over by two cops.  
  
That seemed to settle them down, because the second one, the one with blonde hair who he expected would play 'good cop' sat down across the table from him in his own cold hard chair.  
"All right, fair enough. Where were you the afternoon of the 17th?"  
"17th? What was that, a Monday?" He was playing dumb, but he remembered what the 17th was with perfect accuracy.  
"No, a Sunday." He knew exactly where he'd been. Where he usually never was: church. Shit. That goddamn priest must've told them. He'd wring his little limp-wristed neck.  
"Oh. Um, lemme see, I was at home, getting pissed off my ass with my friends. Ask em!"  
"I think we will because you weren't at home, you were at St. Barnard's church!" Perhaps the blonde wasn't good cop this time, leaning into the table edge and gripping it as if trying to hold himself back from attacking his suspect. He looked to the brunette leaning against the wall for an out, caught in his own pathetic net, but the other cop was silent. "So tell me, what were you  _doing_  at Barnard's?"  
"Well, if you know, why don't you tell me?" That was a little much. The interrogating cop lunged over the table, grabbing Junichiro by his collar and pulling him towards him, forcing the edge of the table into his stomach, hard.  
"I KNOW what you were doing, you sick freak! But I've gotta hear  _you_  say it. ...Talk."  
"The money? Fine, I was going to take it. I was, but I didn't!" He was a little out of breath from the blow to his diaphragm. He was scared and wary, not only of the physical threats, but also of the way the brown-haired cop in the corner stared at him soundlessly.  _Through_  him. It was like they could see every bad deed he'd ever done and never paid for. Every liquor store robbed, every commuter stickup, even the time he carjacked that Mazda, and the several occasions where he'd gotten too drunk and beat the hell out of the closest person he could find. He wasn't a stranger to the worst society could offer, but suddenly, inexplicably, he felt guilty and unclean. Maybe it was the fact that he'd seen a dead priest, maybe it was the fact that he went there with the explicit purpose of beating the bishop half to death and stealing from an institution of God. And there the dead priest lay, murdered before he could kill him? Murdered before he could save him? Could he have stopped it?  _Would_  he have?  
"IT'S NOT THE MONEY! YOU KILLED THAT PRIEST FOR THE FUN OF IT!" The blonde's hands were around his neck, squeezing to frighten, not to injure. But Junichiro didn't realize that, all he could feel were the fingers sinking into his skin, panicking and jumping to the conclusion that his life was about to end.  
"Fine! Stop! I'll tell you everything!"  
  
  
  
  
 _JT: "I walked in and saw him standing there. Grinning at me. I told him if he didn't give me all the money in the church, I would kill him."_  
  
Det. SA: "And what he say to that?"  
  
JT: "He told me that money didn't belong to me, it didn't belong to him, it was God's money. I told him to die."  
  
Det. SA: "So then you drowned him, right?"  
  
JT: "Yeah, I held his head in that holy water until he stopped kicking. But I didn't steal any money. I didn't know where it was."  
  
Det. SA: "And what about the sexual abuse? When did that happen?"  
  
JT: "Huh? Oh, yeah... I guess I was out of my head, cause I'd never think about raping a guy. But I did. Before I drowned him, I covered his mouth - you know, so he wouldn't scream - and held him down. And I raped him. How many years will that add on my sentence?"  
  
Det. SA: "I- uh, I can't say. I don't exactly know. Well, alright. That about does it."  
  
  
Shinseki sighed and looked up from the transcript. It was a perfect confession. All on tape, witnessed by lawyers: bulletproof. There was just the little matter of the autopsy - results still being processed and finalized - and then off to court to put this menace to society away. He might even get a promotion out of it. And he owed everything to that charming little priest.  
  
What was his name? Ah, yes: Koushiro. He smiled to himself - he'd pay the good father a visit to thank him and use that name. How he was looking forward to it.  
  
  
  
  



	6. Comfort

  
  
Back to some good old smut. Enjoy.

 

  
  
  
  
  
Today the sky blotted out the sun with clouds. Gloominess reigned, the snow not so bright as to hurt the eyes. There was no wind.  
  
Today was a much better day than yesterday. Ken found himself walking down the sidewalk, hands in pockets and a tune on his lips, toward St. Barnard's. Toward Izzy. He'd sold quite a bit of dope yesterday, and with cash in his wallet, the world spread at his feet.  
  
Today was Friday, and no one was here. Ken was so wrapped up in his own plans that he didn't even notice the police car parked out front as he jogged up the steps and into the hollow, reverberating cavity that spread overhead. Yes, no one was here, no one but a young boy in a clean t-shirt and khakis vacuuming around the pulpit. Hmm?  
  
Ken, still wearing his stick-out-like-a-Lutheran-at-mass black trench coat, black boots, shirt, and pants, strode up to the first pew and sat down. He caught the attention of the boy, who glanced up from his duty and kept on going.  
But Ken knew he'd tripped his curiosity. He waited, staring up at the many statues bathed in stained light until the boy finished cleaning and shut off the vacuum.  
"Hello. Can I help you?" His voice was shy and young and he guessed he wasn't even 11.  
"No, no. Thank you. I just want to sit for a bit." The boy's attention went back to the vacuum, wrapping up the electric cord. "Do you ever really  _look_  at this place?"  
"Me? Um, like at what?"  
"Like at how beautiful it is. The colored glass, the rich wood paneling, the atmospherically high ceilings... You could fly in here..."  
"Oh. ...Yeah." He looked up, staring at all the carvings. "I guess I do like it. It's really pretty."  
"Does it ever make you feel weird, though?" The boy looked puzzled. "My name is Ken Ichijouji, by the way."  
"Minoru Amano." They both smiled.  
"I mean weird, like - guilty. Do you ever feel like that, here?"  
"No." He was still confused at Ken's question. "Do you?"  
"Yeah, sometimes. But you never do?" The boy shook his head. "What about things you've stolen? ...Candy, money from your dad's wallet? Do you feel guilty about lying to your parents or hurting your brother or sister?"  
"I haven't ever stolen anything." So innocent. The black-haired man thought back to when he was that age. How complicated reality was even when he was young. How guilty he'd been.  
  
"Never, Minoru?"  
"Never, Mr. Ichijouji."  
"Why? I mean, why not? Who says it's wrong to steal candy or money? The mayor? The prime minister? Who writes the laws?" Minoru shrugged his shoulders.  
"I don't know. But it's against the law for everyone. It's illegal."  
"Yes, but who says? Why can one man tell everybody else what to do? You know the earth is round, right?"  
"Yeah, Christopher Columbus, 1492." He beamed slightly at this fact. For some reason, Ken was proud of him too.  
"Good. Okay, so what if everyone but you says the earth is flat? Are you wrong because you think differently than everyone else?" Poor Minoru. He'd stumped him, and for the tiniest of moments, Ken felt bad.  
But Minoru had an answer.  
  
"No, because it's a fact the earth is round. Stealing is against the law and no one is above the law, Mr. Ichijouji. Not even the prime minister." He was very good for his age. Ken smiled at him, working up another argument while Minoru smiled back, happy sheerly for the new-found truth that he could keep pace in a grown-up conversation like philosophy.  
"Okay. But just like it's wrong to say the earth is flat - what if the law is also wrong?" That made him think.  
"Stealing... is wrong.... Stealing..." You could see the wheels turning, his thoughts floating out - audible - in the gigantic room. "Where are we?"  
"Huh?" His question caught Ken off guard. "St. Barnard's?"  
"Yeah, a church. Who says that stealing is wrong? The Bible says stealing is wrong. No one is above God's law, Mr. Ichijouji. And the Bible is God's law."  
  
Ken hadn't felt this alive in years - hadn't gotten to debate for so long he forgot what it felt like. The logical jabs going back and forth, the intellectual stimulation, even if it was against an 11-year-old altar boy.  
  
The gloomy day, the sharp, bright young boy that had bested him: even if he'd lost, he was still happy. The two of them couldn't stop smiling, and Ken felt a rush of happiness that blocked out his surroundings.  
"You're right, you're right. You are a very smart boy." Minoru started to blush, but he was still proud and happy. "My only question is this - and this is because I don't understand - but: Who is God and why does he have the final say-so?"  
  
"Minoru. Are the pulpit and chancel cleaned?" A voice came from behind Ken and it scared him because someone had snuck up on him while he was unaware.  
"Yes, Father." Ken turned, staring smiling up into the unhappy face of his red-haired lover. But Minoru was still there, and what's more, Izzy also was talking with someone. So all he said was-  
"Good afternoon, Father."  
"Good afternoon," was his curt reply. He turned back to the altar boy. "Take the vacuum back to the sacristy storage, and then you may leave. Thank you, Minoru."  
"You're welcome, Father." He turned to Ken before lugging the appliance off through a pair of nearly hidden doors. "I don't know the answer, Mr. Ichijouji. But I know Father Izumi does." He slipped off with a smile and a wave.  
"The answer to what?" It was the unidentified man's turn to speak. Ken turned to him, on the outside looking cheerful and benign, but eyeing him up suspiciously all the while.  
  
A policeman, eh? Ever so slightly, it gave him the chills.  
"Oh, Minoru and I were just discussing the value and relativity of truth. Good and evil. You must be acquainted with it?" Lightheartedly, he pointed to the blonde policeman's badge.  
No one could shoot disguised venom like Ichijouji.  
The policeman smiled dismissively at Ken and turned back to Izzy.  
"I'll be sure to call you when they've set a date for court. You might be called as a witness, but I'll try to keep that from happening."  
"Thank you Detective. I'm so glad it's over."  
"Yeah, me too. It wrapped up really quickly. Anyway, I'll stay in touch, Koushiro. Goodbye." He left with a glance to Ken, but no more words.  
  
" _Koushiro?_ " Izzy turned to Ken, eyebrows up and confused. "I thought no one called you that?"  
"No one is  _supposed_  to." Pointing the comment back at Ken.  
"Sorry, love." He stood up, taking his hands in his while no one was there to see. "So they solved the case?"  
"Case? What case?" Izzy was surprised and sarcastic, but utterly, utterly shocked.  
"The murder of the bishop."  
"I didn't tell you about that."  
"I know." The reply came easily. "I read it in the paper. C'mon, Koush. I may be destitute, but I'm not illiterate."  
"Oh. Sorry, I'm not in the best of moods." He calmed down a little.  
"I know. What happened? I thought you'd be happy?"  _Ken_  was in a good mood, cupping the suddenly receptive Izzy's chin with one hand.  
"I am, I just - I don't wanna talk about it, okay?" He stepped closer to Ken, wanting to be held, wanting to forget about his troubles. "Why are you here, anyway? What were you and Minoru talking about?"  
"Jealous, are we?" He gave Koushiro a nasty, trademark smirk. "Don't worry, I was only trying to seduce him into a threesome." Izzy's eyes grew wide, unable to tell he was dryly joking.  
"Right... You know why I'm here. You know why  _exactly_  why I'm here, Koush."  
  
  
  
  
Down the stairs to the basement. Ken saw the furtive glances Izzy kept casting over his shoulder, making sure no one was in pursuit. He wanted to laugh and giggle like kids did in school, being led by the hand down stone steps to the slowly seeping, damp, unfinished basement. Water pooled in small cracks at the bottom of the block foundation. Izzy was taking the lead now, and it amused Ken to no end.  
It was damp down here and in the most atomic of ways it reminded him of his base in his youth: the stone, the darkness, the sins leaking out of the concrete. It was so unlike the bright and sanctified space above, and the deep dark anticipatory pleasure of taking Izzy in this place was more than he could bear. His hand tightened on Koushiro's, now leading him through stained and marked double doors to a room of loud, machine noises. The temperature was higher too, and Ken could feel his winterized skin begin to sweat as the priest lead him over to the guttural belching of the black boiler.  
"Here." Izzy swung Ken's hand, Ken's arm close to him, bringing their bodies together, touching and perspiring.  
"Koushiro, you wicked thing-" The redhead's hands were deftly exploring underneath Ken's trench, under his shirt - front and back, nothing was spared.  
"For once..." His puffy cherry lips crushed against Ken's, willing him to bite back. Deep down, Izzy knew he couldn't keep up the facade of empowerment: it just wasn't him... He was running out of aggressive stances to take and wished Ken would take over the chore and settle his whining conscience. He pried Ken's mouth open with his tongue, pushing him against the wall. Izzy couldn't help but smile and blush all his chastity away when Ken shook with surprise, his tentative and pale and icy fingers finding their way along the dark man's skinny ribs.  
"This is a new game-" He smiled to himself as Ken struggled back from the brick wall, guiding him down to the floor, making him lie on his back, both now assuming the roles they were only too accustomed to.  
"Or not. Right, Ken?" Ken knew his fresh lover had never looked as smug and seductive as he did now, lips curving up in a smile that only meant one thing. Izzy was finally used to him, finally accepting and wanting and craving him.  
His game had worked. He was the victor.  
The vestments were thrown away, sacred no more on the sooty floor. Only Ken's long black coat was kept, flaring out around them like the leathery wings of a bat, encircled around itself and its desired possession underneath. The boiler rumbled away in the background, muffling their animal groans and gasps. Ken was a live predator, lithe and sleek and tearing his prey to pieces with every touch. His loving claws eliciting moans, not cries. Beneath him was no pure soul, Koushiro giving way in the most precious manner Ken could imagine, beautiful pleasure and abandon covering his bare skin - mixing with the slick sweat. They were almost used to each other, almost familiar, and somehow it made it even better this time as Ken moved inside him. Knowing where did what and why - and why now Izzy was being played into a froth of cringing and swallowing and knitted brows and locked eyes that transferred feeling faster than flesh.  
"Oh, oh... Ken..." He loved to hear that and it only drove him blissfully mad. He wished to reach down and kiss him, but it just wasn't possible. He brought his lips to the other's calf instead, kissing and then bruising, teeth nipping just strong enough not to draw blood. It was too much sensation and emotion. They arrived at the same blissful place at the same time, two passing stars in an empty patch of sky.  
Ken strangled out his lover's name as he came, his whole body tensing and releasing his pleasure.  
"Oh my god, Koushiro...!"  
  
Nothing was safe from the heat in the room, created in as much their fault as the boiler's. Ken withdrew physically, but not emotionally, and only made things worse by lounging sweetly on top of Koushiro's beautiful pale body. He was going to open his mouth and say something, but in his mind nothing would have sufficed.  
"Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."  
"What?" Why did Izzy have to spoil the silence?  
"I just thought we could use whatever help we could - in the eyes of God..." Izzy was blushing now, wishing he could simply sever the two disparate sections of his brain. Stopping the cross-persecution.  
"Oh, come off it. I thought we were past that!" Ken didn't mean to be harsh, but the less-patient part of him was quite peeved at this point.  
"I'll never be past it. You should know that." He looked away from the indigo eyes he'd shared so much with, sans words. "Blessed are the meek: for they shall possess the land."  
"Blessed is me, for being inside you."  
"Ken!"  
"Come on Koush, you can't save my soul, no matter how hard you try. As for your own... I'm sure you more than make up for that in confession." He gave Izzy a look filled with suspicion. "How much of THIS  _have_  you confessed? What kind of gritty detail do you make those poor cloistered fathers sit through?" Now he was playing tennis with a time bomb, giving the redhead a look better than the dirtiest whore could manage.  
"I don't! I mean... I mean I do penance, I just..."  
"You haven't made good with the big guy, huh?"  
"I wish you wouldn't say it like that." This time Koushiro was on the offensive to Ken's flippant remarks. "I've never made it a habit of 'confessing' my um, bits of experience with everyone and anyone."  
"No? No, I guess not..." Ken unfocused his eyes, thinking into the distant high school past they shared. "No, you never told anyone the slightest bit about anything. Not even names of romantic interests." Pupils back to Koush. "Tell me,  _father_ , have you ever been on TOP?" He punctuated the last word, puckering his mouth and bringing it deliciously close to Izzy's nose.  
"None of your business."  
"Of course it's my business! Don't you listen to those public service announcements? In order to be safe, you should be open about your entire past with your sexual partner(s)!" He stifled a small giggle at the raised auburn eyebrow. "Come on kobito, who am I gonna tell?" His voice was soft and encouraging. Surely... It was  _Ken_ , after all.  
"Okay, fine. Yes, I have, Mr. Big Shot. But only once, my first." Now he started blushing, wishing he hadn't added that last piece.  
"And I've only been ass-up once, so we're even."  
"Ken, I didn't need to know that..." His face screwed up, disgusted and aroused in a strange combination. And he couldn't stop the bastard side of his brain from picturing it-  
"It was MY first time." He waited there, smug smile on his face, tapping his long fingers over Izzy's chest. Waiting for the question that was only human nature, even as hard as he tried to fight it.  
"Who was it?" Izzy was fallible... Heh, heh, heh.  
"Taichi." He had no problem being open about it, and it pleased him all the more as he watched the shyness creep over Koush's face, trying to hide the fact that he was imagining it, hearing it in his ears, seeing it in his eyes, letting it wander down and create a terrible tightness in his groin. Ken didn't help matters... "It was the year he was graduating - I was a sophomore. No one was in the locker room. The showers were running and he was glistening with sweat from practice..."  
"Okay! I get the picture." Izzy was curt; more than a little uncomfortable.  
"No doubt." He ground his hips against the embarrassed, pronounced member, making Izzy flinch. But he knew he liked it. There was a faint liquid quality to his lips, an electric crackle in the backs of his eyes. "What about you?"  
"My first time?" Izzy could've sworn he himself was getting into it, and the enjoyment half scared him to the point of backing off. Nah. "Motomiya."  _That_  shot Ken's brows up. Izzy allowed a reflexive, evil smirk to cross his face. Poor Ken.  
"Daisuke?!"  
"Jun." The confusion collected in Ken's eyes, a toothy grin breaking over Koushiro's mouth. Damn, it felt good to laugh. "I'm sorry Ken, if I mislead you..."  
"Bastard." His voice was husky and he slurped Koushiro's bottom lip into his mouth, rolling it over his tongue and suckling on it until the black eyes it belonged to were closed. Izzy knew that Ken and Jun's younger brother had been involved, briefly, in a torrid relationship that eclipsed the summer of his Junior year. Egging him on was only good fun. And he enjoyed the rise he got out of Ken in a wicked, wicked way. "You aren't as pure as you look." Ken was still being silly, but Koushiro had forgotten all of that, placing his strange lover's head between his palms and staring him dead in the eyes.  
"You probably don't remember what you said to me on Sunday when I was cleaning after mass and you came in, unexpected... Come to think of it, it was the same day that Bishop Hiromiya was murdered."  
"Really? No, what did I say?" Ken's laughter was gone, lower eyelids bunching up slightly, staring into Izzy's face.  
"You told me you loved me. I-I just shook it off, but... and you can laugh if you want, because I think I'm crazy, too, but..." Suddenly, Ken knew where this was heading, leaning in close, nose to nose, his wild hair falling across Koushiro's neck. "...I love you, too. Or not  _too_ , if that's not what you meant-"  
"Of course that's what I meant. I do lie, Koushiro. But not about this." Izzy had grown accustomed to Ken's stare and the lock of eyes now seemed so standard- but that didn't take away from the fact that it was deep, pure: it riveted Izzy more forcefully to the concrete than if Ken had shackled him there.  
And he wasn't going to cry... He just wasn't...  
...Someone loved him.  _Ken_  loved him. Ken  _loved_  him. Ken loved  _him_.  
Ken closed his eyes, releasing the other man from their grip, kissing him as softly as he knew he could manage. His lips were insect light and delicate and tears formed in Ken's plum irises as he felt Koushiro empty a great, shaking sigh onto his cheeks. Emptying all his worries and fears.  
"God, Koushiro, I love you."  
"Blessed are they who mourn: for they shall be comforted."  
Ken didn't say a word in protest.  
  
  
  
  



	7. Pain

  
Why the 'blessed are's in the last chapter? It's just my strange little theme. I'm working my way through the 10 Beatitudes.  
We'll see where I end up.  
Notes: Amaterasu is the Shinto goddess of the sun, ancestor to the first Japanese emperor. Good stuff - wikipedia it.  
Warnings for this chapter? Gosh, if you're still reading, you know there's quite a bit of sex.  
This chapter will also have a bit of gore.  
Please let me know if I'm way off base on something, I will really appreciate the info.  I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV.  
Enjoy.  
  
  


 

  
  
  
Ugh. Shinseki couldn't let his eyes wander where they wanted to. Some strange sadistic pull wanted to drag his eyes to the slightly decomposed body even though he knew he'd be guaranteed to lose what he was able to get down of his lunch.  
Consequently, he couldn't actually look at the blade, the scalpel running over the dead man's skin, parting it with no more than a sigh, letting all the dead dark blood see sunlight.  
Sunlight wasn't accurate, no. Fluorescent bulbs hung overhead, giving the pea-soup green walls an unearthly color that spoke of sickness and decay. He couldn't look at those either. The good detective simply stood next to the metal exam table, fingers hooked over the edge to support himself; eyes gazing at the chrome finish and fixtures or - more often - the backs of his eyelids.  
He did not want to be here.  
The blade continued to make little whispers - the ones that promise the cutting of flesh and the turning of all things internal, external. It wasn't right, it wasn't natural - but it had to be done.  
The odor in the room - the one that the exhaust fans couldn't get rid of so quickly - was malpresent, hanging like mist and crawling into his clothes, his skin. Death. Stale, powdery; old death. He said a silent thanks to the God of this unfortunate Jesuit that the smell - the one element he couldn't escape - didn't set off new alarms in his mind's receptors, vulgar and painful and nauseating. Abe was used to the smell of death. Homicide offered many chances to invite malodorous air into his nostrils.  _Every_  murder shared the smell. Few - thankfully - held true brutal violence and gore so he wasn't used to viewing people's insides. Perhaps not... Perhaps he'd be better off if this was a common sight, pushing evisceration into the mundane. But that wasn't the case yet in this city of 120 thousand souls, so he stood as still as he could, his eyes shut, putrid gore drifting around him.  
"Can you hand me a hemostat?" The clear, precise voice of the medical examiner brought him back to the visual world, opening his eyes to the many lines of seeping red written across the priest's chest.  
"What's that?"  
"They're next to the retractors." The woman was looking back down at her handiwork, oblivious to his question. Her hair was kempt and coiffed, tucked into itself in a perfect blonde bun. Everything about her screamed of the professionalism that she exuded and held. It was her, she was it, and Abe could imagine her grey eyes squinting now at the penetrated flesh though he could not see them, hidden behind her angled glasses.  
"No, not where,  _what_." Like a startled little bird, she glanced up, scalpel grasped firmly, non-threateningly, in her hand.  
"Oh! The scissors-styled instruments, with the little crook in them - yeah," she nodded her acknowledgment as his hand hovered over the correct assortment of steel. "I need them to hold back the skin."  
His mind couldn't help but picture it and he swallowed his disgust, placing the mutated scissors in her gloved hand. Morbid fascination - perhaps a testing of his courage and masculinity - kept his eyes trained on the body as she worked, peeling back layers of flesh - more like tearing the tiny fibers, splitting them - exposing the blood-saturated muscles underneath.  
"I have a hunch," she continued, mostly to herself, "that his cardiovascular system may be to blame." Shinseki's eyes finally caught hold of something hanging from the ceiling, something she seemed to be conversing with. A microphone. Had she been taping this whole time? Ire coiled around his spine, his ribs. He  _hated_  being caught unaware. It wasn't as if she'd done it on purpose: catching his self-depreciating blunders - the ones he magnified for the delight of self-torture... She hadn't done it to spite him; just standard procedure. The irritation, however, was still there.  
"Huh? What does that mean? And  _why_?"  
"Um, because, like I said earlier," one now-bloody latex finger motioned to the microphone, "the bruising around his neck isn't consistent. The ones made from the front, while the assailant gripped from the front - show signs of clotted blood. The color is darker and stands out from the surrounding skin: this is typical of an antemortem bruise or wound." He watched her head nod back and forth, motioning through pages of text and lectures of long ago. "But the ones produced while the thumbs gripped from the back - while his head was forced underwater - were made postmortem. The blood couldn't clot at the bruise because after death blood pressure drops swiftly. The heart's no longer in charge, it's all up to gravity."  
Abe shook his head, not trying to take it all in but trying to find where she was going. Blasted woman was going to screw up his investigation!  
"And this means...?"  
"That strangulation wasn't the cause of death - his larynx is intact - and that his head was held in the water only after he was dead. I'd even bet that there isn't any fluid in his lungs... The fatal blow still alludes us." Melodramatic bitch.  
Well, shit. All of the scenarios the crime-scene evidence directed them to were completely wrong. But it  _was_  still murder, right?  
"But his assailant still killed him, right?" Her face was unreadable and his anger was instant and omnipresent. Say something! Tell me I can still make this son of a bitch fry!  
"I don't know. My hunch: cardiovascular failure. ...But we still have to see." Instruments sharp and blunt moved in the small hands of her small frame like clockwork. He looked away when she donned safety goggles, rotary blade whirring to life, small bone fragments sailing in a shower. It was like a bad horror movie until she shut it off, room going quiet, blood pounding in his ears.  
One strain, her shoulders bending with struggle, and the tools she held cracked the breastbone apart, spreading white ribs like pickets in a fence.  
She proceeded to poke and feel around the exposed heart, a little mass of smooth dark tissue. He could see her eyebrows wrinkle, a conversation with herself, but had to turn away violently as she wrapped her fingers around the organ, deforming it, twisting it in its fleshy home for inspection.  
The bile was  _not_  going to win. Was  _not_.  
"The heart shows signs of severe fibrillation, striations are present throughout both atriums and ventricles." She sighed, her crisp voice beginning to show signs of mental fatigue. "It's pretty advanced. There's no doubt in my mind that this was a heart attack."  
"What?" WHAT?! "How can you be so sure?" He was a detective specializing in psychology, not medicine. To him a heart was a heart was a heart.  
Again, a sigh from her - longer, deeper, heavier this time.  
"The heart is a muscle, right?" She was speaking to him, not the microphone, so he nodded. "And when a muscle grows or gets used, tiny microscopic tears occur. Usually these tears heal themselves and the muscle gets stronger." He was still with her, nodding his aggravated head to encourage. "And when a muscle is  _over_ used, many of these tears occur. ...To my eyes, at least," she waved vaguely over the putrefying tissue, "this kind of wear speaks of a massive heart attack."  
Abe couldn't feel the tips of his fingers. Gone. Was it even murder anymore? Would anyone care? Dear God, what was he going to tell sweet, naive Koushiro? What was he going to do with the prime suspect? The one they arrested? The one who  _confessed_?!  
He turned back around to face the body, anger pushing all notions of nausea away. The scalpel was out again, severing the plasticity of the main bronchial tubes and opening the cottage cheese of the lungs for everyone to see. Her fingers again, pushing the tissue aside, eyes peering at the manufactured gore. The smell was now more real, more permeating. From the dead man's lungs to his own. The thought made him close his eyes. God, who would've thought that a human body could smell like that? Outhouses and slaughterhouses... Somewhere he'd heard the comparison, and it was all too vivid and true. He was used to the smell of death, but not the smell of internal organs and their fluids, of broad violence; torn intestines and spine.  
And he was altogether too glad she had no intention of spilling the priest's stomach or bowels. Thank you, Amaterasu.  
"Yep, yep, I knew it." He opened his eyes, glancing at the spilled, rotting mess covering the pale-bluish chest. "No liquid. He was perfectly dead when his head hit the water. Whatever the suspect did to him, however he attacked him... he didn't kill him."  
There were no words for his frustrated rage. There was nothing to do, no way to oppose the facts that were oozing onto the metal table.  
"What about sexual assault? We can still prove he raped him, right?" He saw her face twitch ever so slightly at those words, that request. Her thin jaw tight, the muscles around her ears pulling them once, her gaze raising to his eyes, his determination. His request. Her job.  
"Sure. Help me roll him over." She dug in the cardboard dispensing box for another pair of gloves, helping Shinseki peel them on when he only proved himself inept. At least the microphone didn't catch that, she offering a small coquettish smile and slipping them on for him.  
"Thanks." The hemostats and rib spreader came off, and he pulled an arm and shoulder towards him while she pushed from the other side. A dull thud, sickening if you stopped to think about it, and the sliced meat was gone, the face gone. The closed eyes and pursed lips that seemed at any second capable of re-animation - able to make small talk about the weather or reach up and scream the flesh off your bones.  
All that remained now was the dead man's back, much more appealing to look at and less to smell. The white medical cloth was still gathered about his waist, demureness and modesty even in death. No more. The medical examiner pulled it off, exposing the site of the holy man's deepest shame. There was nothing beautiful about his rounded form, pale and dead - laid waste in life.  
There were no outside signs of rape, no bruises, no blood. Of course appearances weren't everything. A tired cliche about books and their covers popped into his head, tied to an image of the minor priest. The one with the red hair. The one that could descend through this space, this obscenity, and wash his mind free. Books and their jackets, yes? He was sure there was more to Koushiro, more under the surface. Seeing the elder priest uncovered, face down, was putting scenes and sounds into his mind.  
It shouldn't have, but it did. He wanted to nibble on Koushiro's earlobes and taste that pure white skin.  
Heaven help him.  
  
Off in the distance, someone was speaking and he realized like being shaken awake that the doctor was still there, the two of them still in the exam room, the dead body still lying before them.  
At least the microphone was listening to her.  
He knew what must come next, so when she produced yet another metal instrument, he didn't bother asking. He didn't bother looking either, wishing he could simply avert his nostrils as well. Soft, slippery sounds came from the body. Wet sounds, wet and cottony and somehow so... wrong.  
"Detective?"  
"Yes?" He turned for her voice, saw her face, saw that she was nearly as eager to finish as he was. Saw something else. Concern? Worry? He focused on her eyes, blocking out the images in his peripheral vision.  
"I'm eight inches in and there's no semen or signs of penetration." Confusion. That's what her grey eyes contained. It was leaking out, into his eyes and into his brain. "The muscles: the internal and external anal sphincter - they're perfectly fine."  
"Meaning?" Don't say it. Don't ruin everything.  
"If he was raped, which I sincerely doubt, it was done very delicately. And by a boy less than 12 years old." Damn it.  
"Damn it." He stripped the gloves off, casting them on the table, not caring where they landed. His right hand reached for the bridge of his nose reflexively, pinching and squeezing the ten tons of trouble away.  
"I'm sorry, but isn't this good news, Detective?" He wanted to look at her to give her an answer, but she was still poised over Hiromiya's ass, instruments still ministering.  
"No." He didn't mean to be curt. Okay, yes he did. Goddamn it... "This might be good news for the victim, but bad news for all of us still living." Shinseki couldn't help but raise his voice. What was going on? He couldn't understand this! Was this all just to make him look like a fool?! "It means I've got a suspect in custody - confessed, no less - that is perfectly innocent. It means the true killer is still out there! Hiding under our noses, stalking in daylight... He could be anywhere, anyone! And it's starting to look like he's just going to get away with this! Nothing! No sentence, no prison!" He stopped, realizing his hands were gripping the table - realizing the microphone was still on.  
"And now he's not a killer, either." Oh, yeah.  
"No. No, Doctor, he's not."  
  
  
  
  
It was like a homecoming - no it was better than that. It was like all his birthdays, good grades, and lazy Saturdays rolled into a 5000 yen bill and shoved up his open nostril.  
It was beautiful. He'd always liked to think he was stronger than the drug, more of a mind, a will and he  _could_  shove away the cravings and pangs for sometimes as long as a week. But only sometimes.  
And when he let go and gave in, reached into his mattress, or popped up the third floor board from the window, or from behind the inoperable outlet faceplate in the wall, or one of many other clandestine, rainy-day stashes...  
They were his only true net worth in the world, one whose value ran opposite to the stock market and parallel to cloudy, dismal days. Then - yes, then - bliss, bliss and glory for fifteen minutes!  
His skin became warm and tingly-fuzzy from his toes up. His pulse raced as his heart turned on a fabulous jazz rhythm. Bada-bump, bada-bump, bada-bump! Beautiful, his tongue felt thick and heavy and his mouth dry and before his eyes the room redecorated itself in a thousand shades of red and sunsets. And then he was floating! Yes, hovering above the pond of silken, amber water that he could've sworn was his mattress a minute ago. His fully dilated eyes rolled back into his head, and he enjoyed the rest of his cineplex prostrate and twitching ever so slightly on the bottom of a pool filled with ginger ale and mermaids.  
  
Later, he realized, he'd wished they'd been mer-men.  
But that was only later, a later when he didn't want to think, or breathe, or be touched by the rays of sun that pierced through his window shades and his skin just like lasers in a James Bond flick. That was later, a later that included someone's heavy footfalls echoing up the stairs and into his head, reverberating in the empty space that lay therein. The footfalls connected to a body, which held two arms, one that then opened his door unbidden. His beautiful sanctuary! Bastard! But this was still later, and he couldn't shout at the lowlife, much less pick up his baseball bat and beat the living piss out of the fuck. All he could do was gurgle and moan venomously from the floor where he'd collapsed.  
"Who-who's there?" came the tremoring voice of the other man. That was  _his_  line! Who did this trespasser think he was?!  
"Get out. This room's mine." Ha! He could still form sentences. The adrenaline was helping to raise his mental awareness and metabolizing the leftover cocaine in his blood.  
"Oh. ...Um - I..." The hesitant voice was familiar and in a flash of clarity he recognized it.  
"Koushiro?" No fucking way. He was still hallucinating, had to be, and here was the sultry, finned, aqua-man he'd hoped for.  
"Ken?!" Izzy crossed the room as quickly as he could in the near darkness. It was as cold in here as it was outside, but the snow and blaring sun of mid-afternoon was a total polar opposite to the soft and oppressive shadows here. "Ken, are you okay?"  
"Don't speak so loud, love. You're firing bullets at my head." He watched as the priest, in all his vestments, attempted to cross the crackhouse room, eyes not adjusted to the dim light, soul not adjusted to the dank and decrepit. He was too perfect and as his long coat brushed the floor, his fingers reached the edge of the mattress. Ken put up his arms, holding him out at length. "No love, don't come here. This is filth. You... aren't."  
Izzy wasn't listening, pushing his doped up limbs back down, lying his thin frame back on the old Sealy and brushing his sweaty hair from his face. He couldn't believe how frail and vulnerable Ken was at that moment, lips parted and gasping for air but slightly. Anthracite hair stuck to his skin where it could, sweat holding it possessively. A pang of jealousy ran through Koushiro's blood, making him cold from the inside out. Obviously his lover was crashing, coming off of some drug. Izzy wasn't too familiar with hard drugs, or marijuana, or even nicotine. Alcohol was another matter, but, another day... He wasn't sure  _which_  drug Ken was finishing with but that wasn't the point. The point was  _the drug_  had seen him like this, made him like this. Put him in ecstasy.  
It was almost as if he'd caught him in bed with some shapely, muscle-bound cabana boy who had made him gasp, made him sweat, made him his pleasure slave. The thought made his eyebrows crease further than they were already. The drug had taken an intimate piece of his Ken.  
"Ken, are you okay?"  
"My head feels like Imperialdramon sat on it, but, otherwise..." He stared up into Izzy's black eyes, pupil and iris mixing, making love within the white orbs. "I feel perfect. Pain can't touch me: I'm in love."  
This drew a chiding frown from Koushiro, smirk struggling to free one corner of his mouth.  
"I know what you mean." A full-fledged smile trickled out, pulling his face down to the other's eager, pliant lips. The only pain that  _could_  touch him was that of seeing Ken here, living here, knowing he could be so much more.  
  
  
  
  
Abe sat in his metal, precinct-standard desk chair. It wasn't pneumatic, but it let him lean back and it swiveled. Close enough.  
But the chair and its lack of lower lumbar support wasn't on his mind.  
A profile. The division chief had asked him to come up with some kind of pattern, age group and style that fit the murderer- ahem, assailant.  
Shinseki had nearly begged and pleaded to be kept on the case. And they'd given in; after all, he was the officer with the most knowledge about the case. Why take him off just because his division didn't have jurisdiction over it anymore? Wry sarcasm flowed from his mouth but the chief took it in good stride, maturity overriding his desire to shake Shinseki silent.  
Just because it wasn't Homicide's case anymore didn't mean THAT much, right?  
So his job now was to create a profile.  
Ah, anything to see his Koushiro again. ...Wait. Why was he so given to calling him 'his'? They'd only met twice, but he was flooding his mind, his every waking thought.  
No, the redhead shouldn't -  _couldn't_  - cloud his mind right now.  
The profile.  
  
  
  
  
Intimacy was once again theirs. Bodies touching, albeit fully clothed, fingers coiling and smoothing over skin where they could find a space to slip in under shirts, mozzettas.  
They were men, supposedly boiling pockets of hormonal unrest, and yet inside his own mind, each was rediscovering happiness and security as they'd never known, perhaps forgotten. Izzy's long felt coat this time covered them lying side by side, draped not as wings but as a blanket to another reality where only they existed.  
"Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God."  
"I love it when you talk dirty to me." A small smile set itself on Ken's ever-sobering face. Like an infection, addiction, drug or virus, it spread to Koushiro's lips as well. He didn't even care if the raven-haired man was poking fun at him anymore. Not as long as his fingers kept tracing designs around his spine.  
"Clean of heart, right?" Koushiro nodded at Ken's question. "I haven't got a chance, do I?" Auburn eyebrows creased.  
"What do you mean?" Ken let a sigh of more than a dozen years escape his stubble-crusted mouth.  
"You know, my stint as tyrant... ruining my parent's dreams of at least one successful son... selling powdered crystalline happiness to those who least need it... etc, etc. I haven't been the perfect citizen, Koush." He took his hand away from Ken's warm stomach, placing it on his cheek, rubbing back and forth with his thumb, attempting to erase all the pain.  
"I haven't been perfect either." Under his breath he added, "Not by a long shot."  
Ken saw the averted eyes. Body against body, he could feel Izzy tense up. Nearly imperceptible. Were his eyes more liquid?  
"Koushiro?" Ken saw it then, plain as day. His eyes jerked back up, startled, pulled out of a personal reverie to new horror. Scared to look at Ken, scared to show Ken what was behind his eyes, scared to show it again to himself. "Koush? ...What's wrong?"  
"...N-nothing." He shook as he corrected himself. "Nothing I want to share."  
Maybe he shouldn't have been hurt, but he was. What was he keeping locked inside? Why couldn't he share it? More importantly, couldn't he trust  _him_?  
"Koush?" The pitiful-me, small, shy voice wasn't an act. "Why?"  
"No one needs to know. I-I don't want to go over that again. I'm sick of it, okay?" Izzy blinked, somehow finally  _seeing_  Ken's pain. His insecurity and hurt. "Not you, love, not you. I just can't think about it, not again, okay?"  
  
  
  
  
Dark clouds of frustration built in Detective Abe's mind.  
  
Male. Definitely. That was a given.  
Was he a serial killer? Was this part of a string that he'd perpetuated since youth? An obsession grown and born into violence?  
No, not a serial killer. Not yet. There hadn't been another recent murder that looked anything like this. And yet...  
Why else? Nothing was taken, no money stolen, no items broken and smashed in a destructive and interrupted theft.  
No motive. Unless the father had enemies, a secret life of deceit. Mob loans, perhaps? A jealous ex-wife come for retribution on a clandestine lover?  
Okay, enough of that. Shinseki kept forgetting that everyone wasn't as libidinous as he.  
Pity.  
  
Alright, forget the motive for now. Maybe it was simply some psychopathic desire. Many things made it stand out from other murders. Yes, he KNEW it wasn't a murder... It was just to easy to label it as such. No pussy-footing around proper titles and political correctness. This sick son of a bitch didn't deserve euphemisms and pleasantries.  
  
The killer walks in, sees the father, wraps his hands around his neck and starts strangling. Before he could scream.  
Abe fiddled with the swizzle stick in his coffee. One cream, one sugar. Not too much so it wasn't coffee anymore. Just a little tiny bit of everything.  
Chokes him. The father collapses - heart attack. Does the killer know this? He took a sip as if it was still scalding. It wasn't - but still - coffee didn't deserve to be gulped. Smelled it, then sipped and sloshed around in your mouth and enjoyed. Oenophile, coffee style.  
So if the killer didn't know it was a heart attack, and simply watched the father go limp, why carry him over to the font? To drown him?  
Why? Why would someone who was limp, already choked, need to be drowned? He had an innate ability to get inside a criminal's mind, his actions, and sometimes it scared him. Why? Was the killer in a blind, violent rage and couldn't tell the man was limp and indefensible? Or did he know the true length that it took for someone to die of asphyxiation, got startled, scared, and dumped the body in the water to ensure he didn't regain consciousness?  
Either a bout of temporary insanity, or someone with a greater than average knowledge of death. Would it be an obsession? Could it be a power thing, a hobby?  _'Hi, my name is Hiroshi and I frequent funerals and pick up roadkill because death fascinates me.'_ No. Not that easy.  
  
Not a serial killer.  
And what about the sexual assault? Not rape. Pity. It would be nice to have a solid, nasty charge to hit him with. Ah, bygones.  
What about it? Obviously, the priest was still alive when it happened. Would he have screamed? Would he have struggled? Would he have given in? And WHY? Was the attacker homosexual? Or did he just want to humiliate the bishop?  
More coffee went down. No, he decided, looking back on personal experience, there had to be some attraction or fascination. Bisexual. Homosexual. ...Very curious.  
But not purely to humiliate and desecrate.  
  
So the perp busts in, starts strangling him, proceeds to jerk him off; the priest has a heart attack and - thinking quickly - shoves his head underwater, ensuring death and enabling a quick escape just in case someone sneaks up on him.  
  
Male.  
Early 20's to early 40's.  
Above average intelligence.  
Obvious irreverence for religion.  
Homosexual.  
  
A slight smile crept onto Abe's face. The rainclouds disappeared.  
  
  
  
  
Izzy was hurting inside and Ken knew it. He closed off, but wrapped his arms tighter around Ken and fell asleep.  _Asleep_. Bliss, bliss, and glory! In HIS arms.  
He watched him as he slept and a wonderful peace fell over his mind, wiping away the last of the cocaine. Peace in watching him breathe, peace in watching him twitch with dreams.  
Comfort and... anger?  
He could feel it simmering away, somewhere deep and wounded with years. Why did Izzy think himself so bad? Here he was, poster child for purity and goodness, where did he get off feeling this way?  _Ken_  was the one to complain -  _Ken_  was the evil one.  
Didn't he remember his darkness? Was the most traumatic period in his life so easy for Izzy to forget?  
What if the redhead heard something that would spin his mind sick? How would he handle true evil again? If Ken remembered clearly - which, thank you Dark Seed, who really knew - Koushiro had never faced the emperor. It was Davis, it was Taichi and Yamato and Takeru and Yolei. Not Koushiro.  
And that made him slightly more angry.  
  
The priest shook again, dreaming of something vivid, jerking his lower lip, swallowing in large, sleepy but strained gulps. Ken reached down and kissed over his eyelids. Nothing. A sleepy smile crossed his mouth, half there, responding to the real world, but barely. Dark hair dove off his shoulders and onto Koushiro's as he bent over his face, tongue dipping out to run along his lips.  
Wake. Up.  
Nothing... yet. He bent his head downward, capturing one unattended earlobe in his mouth, sucking and gliding his teeth on the sensitive skin. There. Wakey-wakey.  
  
Koushiro woke in - what seemed to him - a rush. He felt something electric running around his ear, begging his hazy desire to coalesce in his crotch. He could feel Ken next to him, that he knew, body heat separate from the room and spilling through their combined layers of clothes. Ken's hand flowing into his cassock, still a layer or two away from bare skin, cradling his emergent erection. The cotton made it hyper-sensitive in some odd way, doubly slithering along his length. He didn't dare open his eyes, didn't want to spoil it. He simply moaned when he couldn't contain it anymore.  
"...Ken"  
It was a beautiful moment, the whole of his world contained in a few square inches of space, his shut eyelids preventing escape to the realm of visual stimuli. He could hear his love mumbling next to him, closer to his eyes than ears. So he opened them.  
The pull of his lapis eyes was immediate. Koushiro couldn't tell what he was saying but his gaze hung on tight, intense and boring and slightly peeved.  
What!? Why? ...  
"Hmmm?" His brows implored: 'speak up.' Like turning up the volume on a radio, words came gradually, structure piling into one sentence repeated over and over. It was a statement, not a question.  
"What if it was I who killed Hiromiya."  
  
  
  
  



	8. Snow Like Wishes, Wishes Like Snow

  
  
  
  
At first he was truly clueless. The second time it seeped through those smooth, plump lips he had deciphered its meaning. Those EYES!  
"What if it was I who killed Hiromiya." No... Oh, God, no.  
"No!" He stood up rapidly, nearly tripping over his coat, the dim light not deep enough to mask any of the intensity in Ken's eyes.  
If he would've thought about it, he would've felt awkward, aroused penis plainly apparent through his clothing as he stood there.  
No time for that.  
"Ken?" The younger man stopped his insane mantra, simply, stoically, staring into Koushiro. "Oh God..." He was going to explode. He was going to scream in rage and rend his few furnishings to pieces or cry in embarrassing fits of frustration, fear and - yes, again - rage.  
So he fled instead.  
  
  
  
  
The other priests didn't know what to say when Izzy broke through the doors at St. Barnard's, snow clinging to his feet and legs and seeping into his formerly dry shoes.  
He was out of breath, panting; he was red in the face. ...At least he couldn't speak. It kept his mind from trying to think about what TO say. What WOULD he say?  
To the rectory he again fled.  
  
  
  
  
Achikawa came into their room later on, when all was quiet once again, when he knew Izzy would be alone and more open to answering their many questions. A knock, more out of politeness than necessity, and the strawberry blonde stuck his head around the door.  
"Father Izumi?" Oh, he wanted to cry. Not him, not  _him_!  
"Yes?"  
"Can we talk?" Fuck no!  
"Sure." He moved to sit up on the small, stiff bed. Despite himself, he smoothed the bedclothes next to him, bidding the other priest sit down. Those same, intense, earnest grey eyes from before locked on him as he sat close - not too close - but close.  
Why was life so confusing?  
"What about?" He heard Achikawa sigh.  
"You know. Before." He broke the gaze, being timid on purpose, coy on accident. "Are you okay?"  
Izzy wanted so badly to tell him to go to a certain place and do a certain thing, but instead it was his turn to sigh.  
"I don't know. I came across an awful shock today, but I don't even know if it's true. I-" His voice began to build, cracking off as he realized it was showing the beginnings of panic.  
"What? What happened?" Izzy half-flinched as the grey eyes watched, his hand resting on the other's shoulder.  
Too much contact. Why? Why contact?  
He shrugged the hand off when just a shiver didn't send him away.  
"Nothing. ...Nothing I can talk about openly. I- I just don't know what's going on." He gripped the sides of his hair in his hands, "Goddammit, I wish I did!"  
Achikawa visibly started at that word, that blasphemy, and Izzy ducked his head further. Oh fuck, he wasn't helping his case...  
"Please tell me what's going on, Izzy.  _Please_  tell me: I can help."  
He shook his head furiously, "No, no you can't. I've just got to work through this; either the pain of telling everyone or the pain of keeping it to myself." The guilt of keeping it.  
  
Or was it even true?  
  
"Iz-"  
"No! No, I can't!" Achikawa gave him his best incredulous look. "Okay, maybe I  _won't_ , but either way, I'm not going to." Exhaustion passed through the grey eyes. He closed them and sighed, placing one warm, unblemished hand on top of Izzy's.  
He gasped silently, but didn't recoil, letting it sit there, letting it pretend to comfort.  
"I understand, Koushiro. I won't make you do something you don't want to." He opened his lids, the weight of his thoughts bleeding out. It made Izzy gasp, audibly. He was more confused than ever.  
"I don't want to tell you, and I  _don't_  want to continue talking to you." He tried to stare back, but his gaze paled against the other's, tainted with untold thoughts.  
Achikawa nodded his head - hearing his words and understanding them, but not acting. Maybe he didn't care.  
"I'll be here if you decide to." The sentence was whispered out, barely floating on the air. He raised his hand from Koushiro's, letting it dance briefly across the skin of his cheek.  
He didn't cringe.  
He let it hang there.  
With a grace only ghosts possess, the blonde drifted out of the room. He was gone and Izzy's face burned where he touched it. His mind burned. What worried him more? Ken: the cause of his bad day, the uncertainties and lies? Achikawa: calling him Koushiro, touching his cheek? Or himself: traveling back to that place inside, simply sitting there while the other priest did what he liked? How far would he have let him go? It was himself, again: going back to Ken, convincing himself their relationship was right when it was so, so wrong.  
  
Not again.  
NOT again.  
  
  
  
  
He was in a supermarket.  
The cereal aisle.  
Boxes of Coco-puffs stared out at him, begging him forward, inducing his mind to thoughts of evil deeds with the help of the cartoon vampire's eyes, plastered on each cardboard box. The tile was a shade closer to spoiled milk than to green, the lights above shining with the same hue. Everything was a sick colour that resided between hospital walls and cafeteria trays. The building didn't smell of food, as it should, but of some thick, heavy odor he couldn't place. It seemed to ooze out of his skin, filling the world.  
Slightly acrid, slightly musty. Slightly wonderful.  
"Izumi, boy. Come here." He spun at the voice, nothing but the boxes to confront. No British men in tweed jackets, pipe hanging from puffy lips, ash dribbling onto their expensive-seeming shoes.  
The boxes... The  _boxes!_  
His eyes widened, each cartoon vampire animating inside the printing, eyes blinking, mouths curling in disturbing smiles and smirks. "I-zu-mi..." They called, they beckoned, they began to tear away from their paperboard homes.  
"GET AWAY FROM ME!" There was no doubt in his mind that they meant to harm him, they meant to do something that he didn't want to think about, much less to happen. So he bolted, legs straining to the end of the aisle.  
The end of the aisle? There WAS no end to the rows and shelves of cereal, suddenly overflowing and spilling with demented vampires. Waves of boxes descended on him, rising around his body, making him panic like nothing before.  
He screamed, a blind, end-of-life scream that curdled his own blood. There was no stop to them! No end! They were still coming in, piling higher, calling his name, punctuating it with that same strange three syllable British tone. A chorus of terror.  
"GET OFF OF ME!" He shut his eyes to the chuckles, the calls, the fingers digging at his clothes. Behind his lids, above his own heavy pants and gasps, the voices condensed into one. No longer calling and laughing, but moaning and crying.  
"Izumi... Oh God-"  
He began to cry, tears spilling out into the harsh environment, out where the voice resided, out where he didn't want to go.  
But he opened his eyes. Fool! He  _opened_  them!  
"Oh... Oh, Izumi! ...Boy."  
No.  
Not out here.  
Oh God... not here...  
He was on his stomach, bare against stiff, short carpeting. That smell was here, thick as liquid, vile as blood.  
A hand reached under him for his nipple, twisting it, making him whimper.  
"Izumi... That's a good boy..." No... The tears came faster now, whimpering not from sensation but from the sheer shame of debasing himself. Having this body on top of him, pushing him into the floor, ripping its due from his soft insides.  
He could feel himself reaching a wicked, unpleasant climax, abused penis harder than he had ever been. It was the thick, abrasive bristles of white chest hair scratching the delicate skin on his back. It was some masochistic part of his brain that wanted to see him miserable. It spilled from him, making him cry out, making him moan loud and breathless.  
Oh, how he wanted to stuff it all back inside, swallow his voice. Kill it in his stomach.  
...Especially his cry.  
"Professor!"  
  
  
  
  
Tears coursed down his face, dripping into his ears as he stared, wide-eyed, at the stuccoed ceiling. He remembered a familiar ceiling from somewhere. He remembered he was awake.  
Most importantly, he remembered a time when he couldn't remember.  
Couldn't remember that... When that...  
He'd...  
"Oh... God..." He quickly clamped a hand over his mouth, jerking his head to see if he'd woken the other priests.  
Asleep in their beds. Thank you, Jesus.  
His groin felt odd, but not wet. He said a silent thanks again before he became fully aware that he was hard instead.  
This was the worst feeling in the world. Betrayed by his own body.  
Those thoughts, those dreams, those... memories. How could they elicit THIS reaction?  
How did they in real life?  
Oh, the terrible  _memories_.  
He couldn't take them anymore.  
  
  
  
  
The cold wind bit at his skin, his chin the only bit exposed to the bitter northern Japanese winter. His security blanket - his long black pea coat trench - was wrapped tightly by his arms, clutching him together, lest he fall apart into piles of bones and bits of flesh.  
He felt he would at any moment. But it wouldn't matter much more, anyway.  
His tears had stopped coming blocks back, frozen to his eyelashes, useless sticky globs of crystal. But maybe he'd cry now as he turned a corner, the north bridge over the Tokoro River coming into view.  
The one that carried out to sea.  
The one that flowed while everything else froze.  
The one that felt more sacred to him than a thousand rosaries, a million hosts.  
Perhaps it was the Shinto blood that ran through him, that only a few years of pressed and crisp Western Orthodoxy couldn't mute. More likely it was the knowledge that this was his salvation, real and solid in front of him. Tangible.  
Not some illogical resident kami or some imaginary guardian angel.  
Not parents that never existed, not betrayal at the hands of his peers and mentors.  
The thoughts came rushing in; the self-pity was back, no morals and hope for the future to hold it off. How the world was after him, and his frantic mind made a good argument, made it seem real.  
He hitched up his coat and cassock, accidentally letting his pale legs brush against the frost-coated cement barrier. Fuck! He pulled away as quick as he could without losing his one-handed grip. In the growing part of his mind that was accustoming itself to the idea of death, he relished in the burning feeling. Relished in the fact that for the next few moments, he could still  _feel_.  
No matter.  
All the pain would soon leave him; he thought for a space about Ken. Damn. He regretted that sorely. Not the pleasure, not the love they now shared, but the emptiness he'd place in his life. Izzy gritted his teeth - no! How dare he feel sorry for Ichijouji! He was a murderer and a liar! ...Granted, perhaps he was only joking about Hiromiya.  
Alleged murderer, then.  
Oh, Ken! A great heaving sigh flew through his chest, nearer to a sob than anything. His beautiful, twisted, love. The only one in the world who gave one-and-a-half shits about him.  
No matter.  
One hand held onto his coat, keeping it bunched though it was already closed, the other to the railing, now behind him. The water was a good distance down, and he briefly wondered how hard it would hurt went he hit. He slid his eyelids together and loosened his other hand, leaning forward for a brief somersault to the end of pain and fear.  
The pipe was gone and he was falling, the wind starting through his hair.  
"Koushiro!" His eyes opened, facing nothing but water and waves, a tight and warm something hanging on to his limp hand, the cold railing a mere memory. "What the hell are you doing?"  
He turned his head in the epitome of apathy, staring at his saviour with heavy-lidded eyes.  
"Detective?"  
  
His voice sounded so tired, so hopeless. His greeting, as if he knew he'd be there, as if he really didn't care one way or the other. He was tempted to let go of the wrist he held in a bone-shattering grip. Let his body fall forward as it wanted to, down into the death slush. ...Koushiro...  
Amante de moi. Sweet, slender Koushiro. Bending and swaying under the weight of his own thoughts.  
Shinseki began to haul him in, fearful of his feet, still very much capable of slipping and carrying them both over. But Koushiro, oh, not Koushiro. Hand over hand, until he was close enough to wrap his arms around. Precious Koushiro, dead in his arms, eyes blinking but not seeing, not caring.  
"Koushiro? Why?" He moved his head until the other would look at him, catching his limp gaze. Why? All he received in return was a silent shrug, a detached response.  
Shinseki furrowed his brows, frustratedly lifting him over the railing, away from the livid river below, denied its ritual sacrifice. It was a shame they were so close in size, the job quickly becoming a chore, quickly becoming an awkward, near-insurmountable task. But the redhead was now clear of danger and now falling towards  _him_  instead. The civil servant put one foot behind him, sliding a bit in the snow to stabilize them. Falling together in the chill and powder was not the goal.  
And now he was close to him, so close his heart skipped faster. In his arms. No bridge pipes to separate them at all. Shinseki held the auburn one tightly, not caring about the after effects, just living in the moment, living to watch the frosty breath leave his mouth and mingle in the air with his own.  
"Koushiro. Look at me, please." His black, bottomless eyes came up again, grasping the verdant eyes with just a shade above despondent. "Why?" Still silent.  
No answer. No change, perhaps slipping a bit further into hopelessness. How could he  _be_  any more hopeless? Abe's lower lip shook without his knowledge, threatening to take over his face, spill tears.  
He mouthed the word, not trusting his voice. ' _Why?_ ' Koushiro's eyes closed, leaning forward into the detective's embrace.  
What brought him here? What tore and bled his happiness out? Warm drops ran down his face, the raw emotion shaking his frame.  
Izzy brought his eyes up, feeling the other man breakdown against his chest, feeling it deeply through his numb being.  
Emotion? What the hell was that? What was anything anymore?  
Detective Abe of the Kitami police department broke down at his love's utter lifelessness, and Koushiro broke with him.  
His own emotions, his own depression, his, yes - but seeing the blonde cry so freely, so profusely...  
They held on to each other, strangers still, and cried their eyes and souls out.  
To the wind driven, new-falling snow.  
  
  
  
  
Shinseki woke the next morning into a dream. The same dream he'd had every day this week. Koushiro was in his bed, sheets rumpled. He touched his face, solidifying it, running his fingers through his short, severely mussed hair. If the wind hadn't done it last night, his fitful tossing and turning had.  
Poor, sweet baby.  
And he did something to Abe, turning him into this pathetic, girlish creature, fussing about, wondering and worrying over the smallest things. The sweet little things. Koushiro.  
He whispered his name out loud, hoping he wouldn't wake him, hoping for one more moment of heaven. Screw the churches. This was his personal salvation.  
After they'd stopped sobbing into each other's jackets, faces... skin... on the bridge last night, Shinseki helped him home, to the only place he could think to take him. Not a problem, he'd wanted to for some time.  
...Holy man! Right! Not a desirable or obtainable object.  
But priests weren't suicidal either, right?  
So he'd drawn him a warm bath and made him tea and bathed him and laid him in bed. It was a strange, arousing mixture of raw, naked, excitement and depthless sorrow, and Shinseki curled up right next to the amaranthine beauty and fell asleep, fingers idly tracing his jawline. And now he was awake, all his nerves wide awake, and the body next to him was stirring ever so slightly, the rising sun pushing back dark dreams.  
Koushiro's lined eyelids quaked open, the eyes behind them droopily searching his immediate surroundings. All Abe could do was smile and try not to, try to make it seem as if he wasn't.  
"Good morning?" Koushiro reacted - thank Amaterasu - but barely. Confusion blurred his bloodshot orbs.  
"And where AM I this morning?" The smile was wiped from Abe's face. His voice was still the tired, vague and irritated mess he didn't want to have to converse with - just cradle and comfort.  
"You're at my apartment, Father." He swallowed a large, dry lump in his throat before adding, "I brought you here last night... I didn't know what else to do..."  
Koushiro shook his head, closing his eyes, sighing.  
"Alright. Fine. Thank you, Detective." Shinseki watched desperately as he licked his lips. "I need to get up and get back to St. Barnard's."  
The younger man sat up, eyes and mind straining against the yellowed light of the risen sun.  
Koushiro couldn't just GO.  
No.  
Not after...  _that..._  
"Koushiro - what's going on?"  
  
Oh, he didn't want to go here, talk about this, that and the other thing, the other life, the whole horribleness that he thought he could kill off.  
"Must we, Detective? I just want to get back to the church."  
"How can you? Don't you remember last night at all?" He certainly didn't want to remember the look in Koushiro's eyes. Izzy scooted to the edge of the chocolate sheets, gathering the cotton terry robe around him.  
Not his robe, he noted. Shinseki's.  
"I do. That's the problem." He turned to the other man as Abe touched his hand. "I need to get back. Now."  
  
Two factions moved as one into battle inside the policeman's head. Can't let him leave: must uncover what's wrong, must comfort and cleanse his troubled mind. And the Can't let him leave: must kiss those plump lips, touch that smooth body.  
But the objective was the same.  
"Koushiro, talk to me. I can only help. Please." He shoved the sheets to one side, crawling toward the other. "There's nothing you can tell me that would shock me. Nothing you could say that would make me stop-"  
His eyes widened, his mouth sewn shut.  
"Make you stop...?" Koushiro's inquiry - tired but curious enough to ask - held him there, his eyes flitting from side to side, searching for somewhere to land.  
"Stop..." Should he? What would Jesus do, right? What would the devil do? What did he have to lose? At the very least, he wasn't getting out of his apartment without some kind of contact, reaction. His mind played fast forward and his cock, hidden, twitched.  
Bastard.  
His eyes shut and he cursed himself. "...Stop... loving you."  
  
At least his striking green eyes weren't open to see the shock rip like fire across the other's face. At least Koushiro didn't pull away from his hand at that moment, tear his soft, quivering metaphorical stomach out.  
"Oh." The shock quieted and Abe opened his eyes, testing the new waters. "I can't, Detective, in good faith return your..." he cleared his throat. "...affections. You know I can't. I've devoted my life to God and..."  
As soon as he said it, he wanted to cram it back in his mouth. Lies. Priests didn't lie.  
Or love.  
Or wish for death.  
Or give in to carnality.  
Ken.  
  
"I need to get back to St. Barnard's." He repeated it, as if it was a mantra, and saying it over and over would make it true. Tears welled up for the second time in less than a day inside the rim of the blonde's eyes. ' _Losing it, Abe, you are LOSING it._ '  
"Just one kiss, please. I beg of you, Koushiro." He loved saying his name, felt as though he could live a thousand lifetimes and never get tired of it. His chest tightened with nervousness, desire.  
"One kiss. I want to see what I'm missing." ' _What YOU'RE missing_ ', he wanted to say, wanted to scream. Wanted to rip his own robe off the priest. Wanted to make him cry and plead for release.  
  
The one whose blush echoed his hair sighed, shoulders conceding. Should he show a struggle? Should he pretend he didn't want this? Didn't want to be wanted, to be kissed and needed?  
Not Abe, not anyone. Dammit.  
Damn his senseless senses. He could smell him in the cotton fabric, the signature smell of the blonde imprinting itself in his nostrils. His skin grew warm with the thought. His mind fought against him.  
If you fuck Ken, why can't you  _kiss_  him?  
Terribly sarcastic, terribly mean-spirited and degrading.  
If you fucked HIM, if you still dream about it years later, how pure are you, really?  
  
Oh, now  _that_  was off limits. Koushiro's lip quivered, giving in, letting the tidal waves of worthlessness crash over him.  
One kiss.  
  
Shinseki reached over to the object of his masturbatory obsessions. Reached over to his simple, immaculate face. Millimeters away, inhaling his breath, his scent, his own anticipation.  
One kiss? Hands followed his lips, locking on to his red tresses, brushing lightly over his ears, down his pale throat. Izzy moaned into the detective's mouth, trying to stop himself, failing. Abe pushed the robe down over Koushiro's shoulders, fingertips dancing over his exposed skin. The devil was out.  
The devil would've satiated his evil had the priest not inhaled shock, pulling himself back to the ground.  
"No."  
"No?"  
"I-I, I can't do this."  
"Koushiro, love," his hands wouldn't let go, they couldn't. They played over his chest, pleading wordlessly with a need too deep to properly communicate. "Don't stop this,  _amante_. Don't stop me, please."  
Fingers over his nipples, ice that burned.  
The father jumped off the bed, nothing but the simple tie around his waist saving his grace.  
No. He couldn't.  
And he had to get out of there before...  
Before...  
It happened again.  
  
For some reason, the ice still ran through his bones.  
  
  


  
  
Notes: Yes, the Tokoro river is in Kitami, runs right through the city.  
Inspiration came from the restaurant scene in C&P: "What if it was I who killed the old woman and Lisaveta?"  
  



	9. Secrets

  
  
The ice even ran through his marrow.  
But he was back - warm, safe, pure - in the walls of St. Barnard's. He'd showered the scent of failure and pity out of his hair, letting the new zestfully clean aroma cover and bless him.  
And he was doing God's work now, polishing the backs of the pews with some type of liquid that made the walnut gleam. 'Old English' the bottle pronounced. Another twist in the wound.  
And then Ken walked in.  
  
He glanced up at the sound of a person entering - first gut reaction - only to wipe the false compassion off his face and replace it with a jutted jaw, set firmly in place beneath eyes that shone cold like the eighth ring of hell.  
"Father."  
His head dropped sharply down, intent on polishing the damnation out of the seats.  
  
"Welcome to St. Barnard's, my child. Leave your sins at the door and enter into God's good  _graces_." The last word he let sting and lacerate in the roiling sarcasm he spit. Ken, his love, his lover, his past, his future, and yet at the same time, the degenerate, the drug dealer, the murderer he'd come to so despise during fitful dreams of the bishop's lifeless body.  
"Are there any good graces left for me?" Ken did his best to look forthright and honest - a face which he'd had much practice with in his youth. Koushiro however, was not buying any of it, no matter how sincere he truly was.  
"Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill," the father recited, pouring every last drop of divinity he still had into his condemnation. Ken shrank back like the classic vampire in reach of a burning cross. Izzy was right, too right, and he'd had long enough to think about what he'd said to his other half to feel sorrow and guilt proper.  
"Koushiro, Koushiro, will you let me speak? Will you let me explain? To say I'm sorry is too brief, to weep and cry and languish is too much. You'd know I wouldn't feel the level of pain I should inside and be all the more hurt for it." He walked over to the burning hellfire that cleaned the wood seats. It was too much here, too much to bask in and not cry out with burning and lamentation.  
Because he'd hurt him. He'd kissed him, fucked him, even loved him, and now he only whipped at his poor fragile mind.  
Ken remembered how he'd looked on that first day in the shower, the first look in his eyes, scared yet lingering in the glow and love with him in the indoor rain. So fragile. Why hadn't he taken that warning to heart? Why hadn't he treated him better?  
Should it all be forsaken for his stupid ego?  
  
Ichijouji gripped at his sable, wringing wet hair in the pain locked inside his soul. Did he have one? And why, oh why, did he have to make this so hard on Izumi, of all people.  
Why in Lucifer's name couldn't it have been someone else? Or why hadn't he just turned around and moved on to a different parish?  
  
"I don't think anything you could say would be good enough for me to forget and bless you with my forgiveness. Even God must have his limits. But why, Ken, why? Why twist up the past and turn the screws on my poor brain? Why kill? Why stay? ..." He attempted to go farther but couldn't for fear of letting loose tears. And he wouldn't cry in front of Ken now.  
No way.  
"Why? Would you like to know the whole sordid tale? Would it make you feel better to know the wherefores and just what's been going on inside my head? Or perhaps why even now, standing before you and feeling worse than anything I could imagine, why some terrible part of me still craves your body? Still wishes to throw you down and erase all that worry and hate from your eyes? Bury myself deep inside of you?" He stopped with the look on Izzy's face, brows knitted together and mouth pursed in disgust. "Why, my love? Why, I did it all to satisfy some sick part of me, to finish a bet made with myself, to see if it really was possible. Why? Every thing was as selfish as to simply see if I could." He paused for breath, waiting to see the true disgust really shade the father's face. "It was all simple wantonness. Wastefulness. No reason to it at all."  
  
The anger sprang forth then. Where was it when they were children and the most vile things they could imagine had come to pass - when the whole world lay in the balance? Where was it when he was repugnantly abused - when he should've stood up for himself and said 'no'? It was here now, and damn it if it would make any difference at this late hour. He rose to his feet swiftly, knocking over the polish, letting it glug out in large glups on to the floor. His fist connected with the taller man's cheek, knocking him back a step, leaving a red welt and surprise in his osmotic blue eyes. Time stopped enough for him to realize a gasp, realize that the little one had indeed struck him, and that his penance was only just beginning.  
Ken stuck a foot out behind him to regain his balance and the world returned to ticking on a normal scale. The gasp reached Izzy's ears and he slithered back behind the pew, physical rage gone again, towed under the surface.  
"I deserved that." The black haired man's voice was low and reserved. "That, and so much more."  
Ken had realized his genius. His plan had nearly succeeded. He'd killed a public figure in a monstrous fashion and gotten away with it. The police were baffled, heads spinning from lack of leads. He'd seduced the untouchable. Izzy's malleable body was his to play with and dabble in.  
All but this. Was he truly above the law - was he superior enough to operate on his own set of morals? Nietzsche proclaimed that God was dead - but in Ken lived the belief that he  _was_  God. Was he?  
"Koushiro. My mind... is warped. I don't know... I don't know." He let out a great sigh. "But I do know that I love you - that you bring me joy that I could never have asked for or hoped to see come true. I have done more evil in a lifetime than I will make up for in several lived true and pure. But I love you. Deep in this dark, craven heart I love you. Nothing could be more twisted because you are like an angel." He stopped to ponder. "Perhaps this is melodramatic and you will have none of it but it needs to be said. And perhaps that's why I'm so drawn to you. Why you are the drug of my dreams, why no chemical could make my skin itch to be touched like you do." He paused for breath, to reassemble his thoughts. His chest grew tight with love.  
And since when do emperors love?  
Ken's lips quirked softly in a reserved smile.  
"You are the only one who could undo me so. What I need to know is, will you turn me in to the police?"  
Barely audible, Izzy muttered verse 7 from the fifth chapter of the book of St. Matthew, so well hewn into his head. What could he do? Despite his love's insistence that he was born out of heaven, he knew he was just a man. A man who pretty lines and pitiful eyes had made their own.  
"Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy." Then louder, so Ken could properly hear. "No love, I won't. Though I pray for your salvation that you do."  
The demon bent on his knees, head bowed, bringing the father's knuckles to his mouth. He kissed each one, lingering and beginning to weep.  
"My Koushiro. I could tell you I love you until the moon died out and it wouldn't be enough." But somewhere in his head, past the love and adoration, a switch clicked on, reminding him of the last fulfillment of his plan.  
The police don't know. And they  _won't_  know.  
  
I am better. Ascendant. Czar-like.  
  
An emperor.  
  
  
  



	10. Confrontation

  
  
The attic of the church was surprisingly temperate. Izzy found a broom and swept a space away on the worn floorboards and Ken laid down, draping his long coat around them both.  
And they simply laid there like that, watching the dust gather on the massive bells and the last sunlight filter through the vents and the white pigeons gather on the rafters and preen themselves. It was a sorrow that filled them in their contentment and Ken felt the first shade of the merest tremblings of shame when he looked over into the auburn haired dove's face, and saw what should've been nothing but pastoral joy shaken by so many things. The newest: merely Ken's actions and words.  
The jade in his eyes took away from Ken's happiness and made him half sit up, leaning over the priest's frame, sorrowful kisses falling against the pulse in his neck.  
"Ken, Ken, please don't. Don't spoil a point of unsoiled bliss with your obtrusive horniness."  
The man in question pulled back, confused and worried. "Koush, I planned on doing no such thing. I just-" His eyes peeled away from the contact with his love's and he slowly moved back to where he lay before, properly chastised. "I'm sorry."  
  
In some matters the silence was calming. It meant that there were no more harsh things to say and that being together meant more than anything else at the moment.  
At every moment.  
Love is a stupid, fickle thing and it made both men fall into a space in their heads where nothing made sense, priorities and fealty turned backwards and inside out. And through the barely ignorable scratching worry in each one's conscience, the desire to stay where they were and spoil the day away in sloth made so much more sense.  
  
Voices came through the pine boards. Through their warmth to ruin and slaughter their plans. "Father Izumi?" But they were so far below, down in the pews perhaps, searching for a priest that would never be found. Several voices muddled their way through the levels of the church so that the words were unclear and mattered very little. Ken nuzzled his face under Izzy's ear.  
"I think you're being hailed, dear Father." He sighed into the earlobe and sucked it between his teeth. "More than one person wants your company." And rolled his tongue across it, wetting the surface and making Koushiro's stomach muscles concrete for a moment. "Who's going to be blessed with your presence?"  
So incorrigible. Izzy was tempted to glare sternly at him and warn him to stop kidding around, but he couldn't. Ken knew his buttons and a careless smile broke over his mouth, despite all that had passed between them. He was going to return the affection and suck at the pale flesh at the base of the evil man's throat, but there were footfalls on the stairs.  
Feet.  
Ken didn't even have time to release Izzy's soft ear as the door opened, one voice mildly protesting 'no, he couldn't be up here'. The other turning the knob and pushing.  
  
The shadowy doorway framed Father Achikawa, swallowing his own words and his shock. Izzy froze where he lay, cowering and very vulnerable, two of his three biggest secrets spilling out and slapping him in the face.  
"Father?" came the high, frightened voice of Achikawa, his pride secretly wounded, seeing his fellow brother lying in quickly fleeing contentment with another man. Another  _man_. His personal wounds and rejection ran far, far away, shouldering instead the disguise of the wounded soldier for Christ.  
"Izumi. What's the meaning of this?!"  
The other figure in the doorway said far less. The blonde spikes of Shinseki stood out from the shadows, made his mouth that much easier to focus on.  
  
' _So that's why he didn't want anything to do with you_ ', his internal voice said. That's why he turned me down at my apartment. The priest has two lovers. The dismissal and denial took a sharp stab and turned his shock into unbridled anger. Who was this dark haired man? He'd seen him before at Barnard's and now it all made screaming sense. His mouth, which Ken focused on as he tried to sit up, formed three silent words.  
"I'll kill you."  
  
  
Now it was all too open. Now it was all too raw. Izzy quickly pulled himself to his feet, forgetting Ken, brushing the dust off his cassock. "This?" He squeaked out. "This is-" tears squeezed out his eyes. What he had been hiding for so long. His shame, his betrayal to his third family. His failure to do a few simple things.  
Like not lie.  
Like not lust.  
Like not fornicate.  
"This is all my fault. Forgive me father, for I have sinned." He dropped to his knees in front of Achikawa, grasping his rosary beads and mumbling fervent prayers to God and Mary for absolution.  
Abe stared straight ahead, glaring, never taking his eyes off of Ken. He took one slow step forward and Ken jumped to his feet, sensing the determination in the detective's eyes.  
"And you are?" Ken asked it softly and warily, but knowing full well what was coming.  
"Your end."  
Shinseki launched himself at the black haired man, the thief. One right fist landed heavily on his jaw, sending his head flying back and his brain sizzling. Before he could react, Shinseki grabbed a handful of jacket and pried him back upright, his left fist aiming for his soft gut.  
Ken wheezed out in pain as he was handily thrown against one oak support growing out of the floor. But it was just enough time as he was out of Abe's reach enough to gather some of his spattered wits and come back, ducking a new right hook and refreshing his right knuckles with the feel of human flesh as they pounded into the blonde's left ear.  
Abe spun around, missing hitting his head into the support post and aiming a blow filled with rage at the pretty pale nose. Oh, how he wanted to break it. He wanted blood to pour forth and wanted to hear the man cry in agony. As he turned to deliver his wrath, Ken swung around in a tight circle, boot extended, crashing sharply into the side of the policeman's head.  
"Stop it! This is a church for Christ's sake," Achikawa intoned sarcastically. Yes, it was his job to maintain the sanctity of the grounds, but the human side of him so desperately wanted to see the blood of the black haired man spilled. His right eye was already puffing nicely and he allowed himself a haughty, brief smirk at that.  
Izzy was so enraptured in his own worthlessness and the mantras at hand that he barely heard the struggle unfolding behind him. It registered, but only in the back recesses of his mind until he heard Achikawa speak. Koushiro turned, witnessing the two men trying to tear each other apart, gasping, dropping his beads and pushing himself between the two before Shinseki could throw another punch or Ken could try and flip him over in a poor-form Judo throw.  
"Stop, please," he squeaked out. Izzy's eyes were full with tears, and he threw out his arms in front of Ken to block Abe. Was he so full of rage that he'd fight through the one he was fighting for? The policeman's hand wavered, then paused, clenching and unclenching, looking for something to strike.  
"Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God!" Wet drops slid down his shameful cheeks, trying to salvage any sanity in the situation.  
Ken stepped carefully around his lover, calm and staring Shinseki full in the face. There would be no more shame for Koushiro.  
"Now what, Detective? Now what? Are you going to handcuff me and take me in?" He wished the vicious words could rip across that fair face and leave long, weeping, ragged wounds. "I could make a break for it and knock you down. I'd get out of the church and possibly even have enough of a lead on you to disappear for today. But you'd have me after that. I can't run from an entire police force, can I?"  
Shinseki's confusion stopped him from responding before Koushiro could.  
"Ken-san, what..." he chose his words carefully "are you..." Truthfully, maybe his mouth was better left closed. He didn't know what to put at the end of those words. What could he say in front of the officer that wouldn't land Ken in jail? He even questioned this. Did he want Ken in jail? No! No, of course not. Ken was...  
But did he want justice for the brutality done to the father? That didn't even need to be answered. He left the words hanging in the air, letting time sweep the scene by as it would. Fate would not drag him into perturbing the outcome.  
"And what would I arrest you for, sir?" Abe held his breath, not knowing what the raven-haired incubus would say next.  
"For two counts of assault, of course! You've got witnesses, all of whom are very fucking upstanding citizens. Do I really need to go to an instant replay of some kind, Detective? You saw it yourself - I had this virtuous priest pinned to the ground. Do you think he was having  _fun_?!" He turned to see Izzy's expression, which was all pain and fine trembling now. Better than crying and spouting 'hail mary's', right? "And what about you, Detective? Or do I need to keep processing your face into so much ground meat?"  
Achikawa and Shinseki froze in confusion. Izzy was a picture of rage and his eyes bore out a growing horror that fate had torn the situation away from him.  
"Uh..." Shinseki tried to form a sentence that would make sense. When this bastard was laying atop his Koushiro, Koushiro wasn't putting up much of a struggle, was he? And didn't  _he_  throw the first punch? He was still trying to decipher this when Ken gave a loud sigh, saw he needed to push his point home instead of waiting for the questions of logic to dribble out and plowed his fist into Abe's puzzled face.  
"Fuck!" He staggered back, catching the blood dripping from his nose in his cupped left hand. Cold eyes shot back at Ken. They weren't the eyes of a scorned lover, they were steely cop eyes. Abe took a step back, unclipped the Glock under his coat and drew it on Ichijouji. "On your knees."  
Ken smirked and did as he was told, lacing his fingers behind his head for good measure. Abe took out his handcuffs and snapped them expertly around his pale wrists.  
"Thank you so much, detective. I don't even know how this ruffian got into our sacred church." Achikawa's slender hands were on the detective's elbow, and he turned to accept the priest's sincerity in this twisted situation.  
"No problem, father. My job is why I get up in the morning." Without looking down, or tensing a single muscle in his face, Abe cracked the butt of his handgun across Ken's head.  
Fuck him, he wasn't getting a single sound of pain from Ichijouji. That violence was uncalled for. Ken simply snapped his head back up after the stars had stopped spinning in his brain, defiant.  
Izzy gasped at Shinseki's nonchalant display of force while Ken was dragged to his feet and shoved towards the door.  
"Father, are you alright?" He could hear Achikawa's attempt at concern somewhere in the background of the fog of his mind. All he could see was Ken being hustled to the police station. The dark-haired man turned his shoulders around for a moment to give Koushiro a sly smirk before he was out the belltower door and down the stairway.  
Izzy's brows drew together in confusion, tears dried now, and he stared back at Ken for one slow moment.  
And he was gone.   
  
  
  
  



	11. Games

  
  
On the ride back to the station, his eyes were on me. They never wandered, never looked out the window. Always fixed on the rearview mirror. Whenever I'd look up, his eyes were there, sifting through my thoughts and my intentions. It was eerie, I could feel him flipping through my brain like a card catalog, picking out what I felt for Koushiro.  
How I felt when I saw him on top of what should rightfully be mine.  
What I wished was mine. What I wanted to pluck away and protect from scum like this.  
Mine.  
I clenched my jaw, coming close to pulling the squad into an alley, pulling him out of the back and kicking his ass.  
This filth, in my backseat. I had so many questions that needed to be answered. But how could I ask them?  
' _Are you together? Does he love you? Do you FUCK him?!_ '  
My knuckles were white on the steering wheel as I drove into the police station.  
When I pulled him out of the car by the back of his jacket, he was smirking. Just like he had back at St. Barnard's. I was beginning to think he was either the smartest man on the planet, or the most insane.  
  
  
  
  
Was I insane? I was sitting, hands cuffed behind my back in the light blue room, waiting to be fingerprinted and processed. Letting it all sink in. After all the things I've done... I let myself get arrested for  _assault_. No, I forced myself to be arrested. Stupid Ken. They'd never pin the murder to me, and that was final. I'd let them keep me for the 48 hours until the hearing, and however long they wished to incarcerate me - only a first offender! - until I was back out and with Izzy.  
Stupid louts. I watched the policemen with their fine haircuts talk about me. That stupid detective with the fake blond dye job.  
His rage had given him away, and I knew he was after my Koushiro. More reasons to be wary around this one.  
  
  
  
  
Shinseki strode over to Ken, all comfortable confidence. He was in his house now, and he would not let his smirks and sly eyes unnerve him like they had in the church.  
"Have we calmed down now?" Shinseki let a smirk of his own dance across his mouth.  
"Quite. I'm perfectly ready to plead no contest to your charges and settle down in a nice comfortable cell for the night."  
"The night? Is that all you think you're getting?" Oh, the ball was so in his court now. "I hate to disappoint, but the penalty for assaulting a police officer - even if unarmed - is much more than one night." He watched the smile fade from Ken's face. "And trust me, by the time I'm done picking through every last one of your skeletons, you'll be begging pathetically for mercy. With Justice, there is no mercy." He leaned in close to Ken's face. "There's more to you, I'm sure of it, and I'm not going to stop until I know more about you than God himself."  
Icy chills raced down Ken's spine. It was close, close to remorse for everything he'd accomplished in the past few weeks. He had overestimated Abe, and now the cold realization that he was handcuffed and at his mercy was very unsettling.  
  
Hesitantly now, Ken let himself be fingerprinted and mugshot. With nothing further incriminating to be found on his person, he let himself be led into the holding cell. Five other miscreants gazed steadily at the newcomer, pushing the breath out of Ken's lungs. This night would not be pleasant.  
  
And indeed it was not. Ken had spent long nights with strangers before, but it was usually in a blissful narcotic stupor. This was anything but, his eyes wide awake for most of the night, watching the other prisoners warily or unable to close them listening to the jackhammer of snores chorusing off the stark walls.  
He'd drifted off once, only to dream fitfully and wake when a sweat-and-dirt crusted hand brushed over the zipper on his pants. He jerked into full consciousness and grabbed the face of the man tenuously assaulting him, propelling him with force into the brick wall they rested against.  
The man retreated into one corner, no more warnings needed.  
But Ken counted two other sets of eyes watching the events with disturbing interest. He didn't dare shut his eyes again.  
  
Morning came and along with it an unappetizing dish of soupy oatmeal. There was a cup of coffee beside it, but it was so watered down it wasn't even fit to call coffee.  
The meal did nothing for Ken's spirits. With each spoonful, he kept reminding himself that he'd been acquainted with real danger before this. This wasn't  _real_  danger. He was simply nervous and on edge, watching his back as he ate.  
When one officer called his name and motioned for Ken to follow, he noticed he complied with the order with a sick bit of relief.  
  
The officer handcuffed him and walked him up four flights of stairs and into an office area. There were several secretaries buzzing around, wafting papers from fax machines to desks and back again. The area was abuzz with ringing phones and activity. The man who led him guided him into one of the six or seven rooms that branched off this central hive.  
He glanced quickly at the door the officer was knocking on, recognizing the name immediately: Lt Det. Abe.  
  
A muffled voice bade them enter and the officer plopped Ken down in a chair opposite the blonde detective. One of Ken's wrists was uncuffed and the free cuff connected to the chair arm. Abe motioned with his hand for the officer to leave, not taking his eyes off the paperwork in front of him.  
The detective absently stirred the coffee on his desk. Ken had no way of knowing: one cream, one sugar; but he did know from the aroma its quality far surpassed the sludge he'd just sucked down. Another reason to hate him.  
  
Ken and Shinseki sat for several minutes in deathly silence. The indigo-haired man was not about to cede the upper hand and open his mouth first.  
The wall clock ticked the seconds by loudly, each 'tick' seeming in rhythm with the pulse that beat at Ken's temple.  
The swizzle stick stirring against the bottom of the polystyrene cup went scritch, scritch, scritch.  
Abe still focused on the paperwork, scratching notes lightly with his pencil. He seemed completely content to let Ken sit there for eternity.  
Tick.  
Tick.  
Tick.  
Strich.  
Strich.  
Strich.  
  
"Good morning, Detective. Are we just going to sit here all day or do you actually have something to talk to me about?" Abe did not look up at Ken's remark, ignoring with perfect precision.  
Ken counted another 30 ticks/striches. He had to say something.  
"That's fine with me. I can be a patient boy." He shrugged into the chair, getting comfortable, gracefully crossing one leg over the other. He would not let this half-witted insect crawl under his skin. He angled his face in a haughty, regal posture. Would  _not_  let this fake little blonde get to him.  
  
Abe didn't look up once. Not even out of the corner of his eye. He kept himself fully engrossed in the shuffled papers on his desk.  
Try as he might, Ken couldn't keep himself from drumming his fingers on the chair arm. He started tapping his toes inside his shoe. Started counting the number of thumbtacks on the wall behind the desk.  
Started picking at the hangnails on his fingers. God...  
  
"Seriously, was there a purpose bringing me here, or are you just going to sit self-righteously behind your desk all day?" Nothing. The only thing Abe did was pluck his coffee cup from the surface of the desk and take a long, languid sip.  
"You know, you're one of the most transparent people I've ever met." Ken narrowed his eyes when Shinseki pointedly continued to ignore him. "I bet you think this tactic of ignoring me is going to make me reveal something condemning. I bet you think you're fucking  _genius_." Ken smirked. "If you think you can outmaneuver me, you are sadly mistaken."  
It was Abe's turn to smirk. ' _You smug little bastard._ '  
"No, Mr Ichijouji, I think you'll find that the most transparent person in the room is the one sitting handcuffed to a chair. I'm pretty sure I've got you completely figured out." He raised his eyes from his desk, locking verdant, critical eyes on Ken. "Men are moved by two forces only - fear and self interest. Yours is obviously not fear." Ken smirked.  
"Napoleon. How quaint." He recrossed his legs. "What you forget is you're using rational thought. Rational thought is interpretation according to a scheme which we cannot escape. Since when are criminals rational, their motives sequestered into two neat little boxes? You  _obviously_  are no sage profiler."  
It was Abe's turn to smirk.  
"Nietzsche. Duly quaint." He leaned back in his chair, bringing his hands together and to his face, affecting the pose of a scholar. "I have great respect for Friedrich. After all, he probed the depths of good, evil, punishment, morality. Nietzsche also had no respect for religion and the personality of the society which breeds dependency to it. Many times he rallied for independent thinking men to cast off the burden of the cross and evolve. And yet here we are, over a century since 'Genealogy of Morals' was written, and we still stream rank and file into church every Sunday." That got Ken's eyes to roll. "Thoughts, Mr Ichijouji? Am I treading with heresy on your beliefs?"  
Ken didn't know what he was playing at, but he wasn't about to join the game.  
"I really don't care one way or another, Detective. All I know is you are no shrink and you fail doubly as a philosopher. Nietzsche was also a sexist and racist asshole, I hope you didn't overlook those qualities." Shinseki had to find a way to get a reaction from him. Even if it meant going a little overboard...  
  
"Do you know what my favorite part of the Bible is? Hmm?" His crisply superior demeanor grated on Ken's nerves. Abe sat up in his chair and reached into one of his desk drawers, pulling out a copy of the King James Version. His quick fingers opened to where a red ribbon bookmark neatly laid. "My favorite verse is in Ezekiel, chapter 7 to be specific." His verdant eyes lidded as he read.  
"Make a chain: for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence. Wherefore I will bring the worst of the heathen, and they shall possess their houses: I will also make the pomp of the strong to cease; and their holy places shall be defiled."  
  
He reached down to turn a page but instead grasped it between his fingers and slowly tore it from the spine. An electric light danced through his eyes when they locked with Ken's. As if he were taking a strange intoxicating pleasure from tearing the gilded paper.  
He reached down and tore another, then another, until he'd taken out nearly an entire book. Then Shinseki calmly reached into his pants pocket, produced a lighter, and set the pile of torn pages aflame.  
He unceremoniously dumped the burning mass into his wastebasket and turned glowing eyes on Ken. The indigo haired man swallowed visibly not at the display, but rather at the mania lighting his eyes. Was he cracked?  
"Any objections, Mr Ichijouji?" His gaze was level, piercingly so.  
"None. Why?" Ken's eyes did not flinch from his stare.  
The fire exhausted its fuel and died out. Abe picked up his phone, murmured something to a secretary, presumably, and resumed his tedious paperwork. Less than a minute later, the same officer who'd led Ken here returned, uncuffed the chair, recuffed Ken's free wrist and started to lead him from the room. "Don't think we're done, Ken." Abe spoke without looking up. "I'll be seeing more of you tomorrow."  
He didn't save a glance back, intrigued by the Detective but utterly glad to go back to the holding cell. At least there he could meet his enemies with his fists. Here, the enemies were enigmatic, difficult to strike, and required well-thought tactics.  
  
Once the door was shut behind the officer and Ken, Abe glanced up, a victorious smile on his face.  
"No profiler, eh? You're certainly male, certainly intelligent, and didn't bat an eye at my display of religious irreverence. Perhaps tomorrow we'll test your interest in violence."  
  
Check.  
  
  
  
  
That night was no cakewalk for Ken. He had slept maybe 30 minutes the night before, and his eyelids were heavy. The other prisoners were not paying much attention to him, and he felt oddly safe. It may have been a few minutes, or perhaps a few hours, but it seemed like an instant to Ken. His eyes popped open as he was jerked up by his shoulders, two rough hands pulling him to a standing position, one covering his mouth and another pulling up on his hair. A half-second of confusion washed through him, trying to remember where he was. Then it was all panic as his location and situation became evident. Two men, the same two watching him last night, had taken him by surprise and were pressing his back into the concrete wall.  
The one holding on to his hair and his mouth was a few inches shorter than Ken, and about 15 pounds heavier, all of it muscle.  
The one holding on to his shoulders, now sliding down to grip his arms, was a good 6 inches taller and easily 200 pounds.  
This bigger one had a few cracked teeth in his smile, which he now showed with sickening delight to Ken.  
"Aren't you a pretty thing? We're going to have a lot of fun with you." The shorter one snickered at this. Ken's veins coursed with terror. "Tonight, we're just going to get acquainted." One hand left Ken's bruising bicep and turned into a fist, connecting with the force of the man's weight into his unprotected stomach.  
As much as he wanted to, he didn't whimper at the blunt impact. The man laughed arrogantly anyway, leaned back, and punched him again.  
It was a blur of pain, the bigger man finding slightly different areas of his abdomen to punish. But it was all the same general area and the agony grew with each blow. His arms were pressed into the concrete - there was no way to move, much less struggle.  
  
More hits and Ken was suddenly fighting back bile, the acute ache in his stomach growing and spreading to his legs, his knees, his chest...  
The man paused for a minute and his smaller companion took the opportunity to gracefully lick the side of Ken's face, using more tongue than was necessary to make his point.  
"Shu and I want to get to get to know you. We want you get to know us. We want you to understand that we plan on spending every possible second beating the shit out of you." The smaller one, Shu, chuckled lightly at this. "We want you to come to expect it, the pain, and when you get to the point where you understand that we will beat you, and there's nothing you can do to change it, then you're going to suck us off. You're going to do it nice and slow with that lovely mouth of yours. And you're going to enjoy it. Because sucking us off means no more beatings. Do you understand?" The sick smile on the man's face grew as he outlined their plan. Ken's heart raced faster and faster until he was sure it was beating out of his chest.  
The man punctuated his point with his other fist now, unused and fresh, landing blow after blow onto Ken's stressed ribs.  
When he was good and out of breath, he and the smaller man, Shu, released him and let him fall to the floor.  
Ken promptly vomited the few contents of his stomach onto the floor, what may have been tears mixing with the excrement.  
Both men standing over him chuckled and walked off to their own corner, their effort for the night at an end and sleep beckoning them.  
Despite the edges of pride still lingering on the horizon of Ken's mind, he didn't bother to stand. He simply scooted back against the wall, curled up into a ball, and tried to fall asleep.  
It was only when the rising light began painting the walls a faint gray that sleep finally caught him.  
  
  
  
  
That night was much different for Koushiro. The sacristy was cleaned, candles lit at various shrines, confessions taken, indulgences given.  
Izzy was even less comfortable giving out indulgences now that he had committed such blatant mortal sin. Sin viewed by the local priesthood.  
Lying with a man.  
  
And yet neither Achikawa or Isoroku mentioned it. It was as if Ken's obvious lie had woven its way into truth, and they believed he had merely been attacked by the raven-haired psychopath.  
Perhaps it was just as well. Ken had no pretense of chastity to uphold.  
But deep down, Izzy was ashamed beyond words.  
  
And yet he pushed ahead, absolving the townspeople of their sins while he felt his may as well be emblazoned on his head like a brand.  
Homosexual. Fornicator.  
  
And how he had taken in the man, nearly forgiven him, he who was most likely responsible for the brutal murder of Hiromiya.  
Hiromiya.  
  
He mulled the name over in his mind as Achikawa approached him. He suddenly realized he never knew the man's first name. They were close professionally, but there was a sanctity and reverence that remained unspoken - that kept him from thinking to ask for his given name.  
"Father? Would you mind going to the confession? There's someone waiting inside." Some strange sense of privacy kept the priest who greeted patrons from also accepting their confessed sins. Izzy marched dutifully to the box as requested, entered, shut the door, and took a deep breath. Easy does it.  
"Bless me father, for I have sinned."  
"In the name of the father, the son, and the holy ghost. What sins have you committed, my child?"  
"I..." An expected pause came from the other side. "I have sinned. I have sinned in my own head." Izzy successfully but barely, suppressed a yawn.  
"Thoughts are not sins, my child. Actions are. Did you act on your thoughts?"  
"No... No, but I would very much like to." The unrepentant man turned in his box, reaching slender fingers through the holes in the screen. This got Izzy's attention. "Koushiro - I would  _very_  much like to."  
Izzy's charcoal eyes flew open. What the hell?  
He could see blonde hair through the screen and finally found a face for the voice.  
"Detective?" It came out choked, a bit of a squeak.  
"Koushiro, I've been doing nothing but thinking of you ever since we first met. It's like a thick fog has entered my brain. All I can think about is you. God, I know it's wrong, but I can't help it. And then that one morning..." His breath came in shallow gulps, remembering the feel of his skin on his fingertips. The brief taste of him on his lips. "Please tell me I'm wrong, I'm sick, I've imagined too much."  
Izzy strained to swallow the lump growing in his throat. It wasn't as if he didn't desire the blonde man - but there was so much at stake. How much longer could he continue to indulge in sin while Achikawa and Isoroku remained oblivious? It wasn't as if the scene in the attic was bad enough... And then there was Ken! Was he rotting away in jail right now? Maybe he deserved to rot. Maybe this was the best thing for both of them.  
Still, there was Abe... Delicious man with the probing green eyes and the body muscled in just the right way... Suddenly his own body was filled with nervous tension.  
"Have I imagined too much? Please say something to me, Koushiro-kun." He dropped his voice an octave into a sultry, husky tremor as his said his name. It was enough to run chills over Izzy's skin and blood to his groin. Suddenly his mouth was very dry as he tried desperately to respond.  
"... Abe-sama, you have been imagining too much. Thoughts of his nature are not sins, but they are never good and certainly not healthy." He rubbed his hands together, desperate to busy them with something other than the urge to touch the fingers stretched through the screen. "I don't think I am the best person to... assist you with your confession. I feel... I should find another one of the priests, someone who... who..."  
"Who isn't stumbling over his words with lust?" The quick words licked over his ears, predatory. Even if conscious-Izzy didn't realize, sub-conscious-Izzy instantly saw the arrogant manner Shinseki was displaying and how much he was acting like Ken. Izzy's body knew as well. He was rapidly growing hard.  
"No, no, that's not what I meant!"  
"But it's what you feel. Please don't patronize me. I can read the thoughts that are bleeding into your voice. I know right now you're tempting yourself with the idea of sucking on my fingers." He chuckled darkly. "Why don't you just act on that urge?"  
Izzy bit his lip - god, how was he so right? He was thinking of merely stroking his fingers with his own, but the new idea of wrapping his lips around them was much better.  
God...  
He gritted his teeth in frustration. The impulsive side won out.  
Koushiro brought his lips to Shinseki's fingertips, brushing them gently. He heard the other man inhale in surprise. Was he not expecting him to make good on his teases?  
He parted his lips just slightly, rubbing the wet inside surface like a whisper over his nails.  
One of the disembodied thumbs ran over Koushiro's jawline, encouraging. Izzy darted out his tongue, playing like a shadow on the very tips. Flicking out and in, molecules of moisture on Shinseki's skin.  
"...Please..." The blonde whispered it out in a needful gasp. Koushiro's face was close enough to the screen that he could see plainly through the holes. Abe's head was tilted back against the far wall, his mouth parted, small pants escaping. Those brilliant green eyes were tightly shut. His free hand wandered down to the apparent bulge in his trousers, massaging it gently. He simply exuded debauchery.  
Koushiro could not keep the evil thoughts from his head. He opened his mouth and took two of the offered fingers into his warm mouth in one quick motion. Shinseki granted him a moan for his efforts and Izzy sucked with electric force.  
They were both lost in the moment and did not hear Achikawa approaching.  
The confession was too long, the moan too loud. The door sprang open and Izzy was greeted by wide eyes that could not mistake the scene displayed.  
  
Father Achikawa brought his hand to his mouth, stifling a gasp that bordered on a scream.  
"What? ...What are you doing?!"  
Izzy had no words, only a deep blush that painted his shame like blood on his cheeks.  
"Unforgivable... I thought I had misunderstood what happened in the attic two days ago. How could I have been so naive?" The father's eyes narrowed dangerously. There was no escaping his punishing stare.  
It was probably only 15 seconds of painful silence, but to Izzy it felt much longer. His sins were sliced wide open for all to see. There was no explaining to be done. His tenure in this, his third family, was at an end and he knew it.  
"Get out - get out and don't  _ever_  think about coming back!!"  
  
  
  
  
Izzy bolted out into the snow, all was a blur as he walked aimlessly down the block, embarrassed tears running down his face.  
Shinseki caught up to him, running after him as the snow fell.  
"Koushiro! God, Koushiro, I am so sorry! You have no idea!" He was hastily pulling his coat on as he jogged to catch up. Izzy didn't want to think that he was following him. He just wanted to be alone, have the icy snow slap his face in penance.  
He wanted to jump off that bridge again - wanted to fall slowly through the air - wanted to hit the water like concrete and cease to exist.  
Why hadn't he before when he'd had the chance? Why didn't he slap away Shinseki's protective arms and let gravity do its job?!  
"Koushiro - please listen to me..." The blonde had reached him, placing his hands around Izzy's elbows and drawing him backwards into a half-embrace. "I didn't want that to happen. I didn't plan on that happening. I came there to seduce you, not get you thrown out!"  
Izzy shut his eyes, squeezing rivulets of tears out of his eyes and down his burning cheeks. He was absolutely worthless - garbage and refuse. It was  _his_  fault and not the detective's...  
  
"This is my fault - I should never have... done what I did. I've been rightfully discarded in the eyes of the Church and of God." He took a shaking breath. "I'm supposed to be set-apart, but here I am, returning to and becoming the filth I can never escape!" His voice left him, body giving out and leaning into the tempter's arms.  
"You're not filth, Koushiro. You're human, and I should never have been so forward." He was so grateful to have the beautiful redhead near him, taking the opportunity to move his hands from his arms and wrap them around his chest instead. Easy does it - no need to scare him away now. "This is simply my fault, not yours. But let me say what I feel for you is not filth. I should've... I should've been more respectful of your position and listened when you said no." Koushiro jerked his head around, trying to make eye contact while being held so close.  
"I DIDN'T say no - that's the problem!" Fresh tears sprang. "I can't say no - not to you, not to Ken, not to..." He couldn't do it, he couldn't say it... Abe let the unspoken words hang in the air. He could feel the pain radiating from Koushiro's body. He himself was briefly gripped with jealousy at Izzy's admission of a relationship with Ken and... others? ' _I'm going to make that criminal's life absolute hell._ ' But he didn't let it bleed into his muscles or into his voice.  
"I'm not going to push, Koushiro. I don't want you to imply a yes simply because you can't say no." The green eyed man let out a long and deliberate sigh. "You deserve to make decisions by yourself, not because of outside pressure or because of", he used his fingers to make slight quotes in the sarcastic air, "divine pressure. Stop worrying about disappointing people and start worrying about making yourself happy." He turned Koushiro around awkwardly in his embrace, "What would make you happy right now, Koushiro?"  
Izzy could not pull away from his concerned gaze, linking them with potent force and conveying the emphatic desire behind those words. Abe wanted him happy - wanted to see him smile. This was miles away from... from... Izzy pushed his nose closer to the warm, concerned face, his eyes closing unbidden. This is what he wanted, his WOULD make him happy. His chest constricted in anticipation and he could feel the blood rushing through his arms, legs.  
There were very few thoughts going through Shinseki's mind - whirlpooling around in happy frenzy. 'Is he going to kiss me? He is: oh my god! Oh my god! Right now? Oh my god!' He couldn't stop the delighted flutter locked in his ribcage from running free up his arms and the back of his neck, sending goosebumps on high alert, racing up his scalp.  
With colossal effort, he forced himself to stand in place. God, he wanted to cup that beautiful chin and pull it closer - faster, now! - but it was already inching on its course towards his face. Shinseki closed his eyes and waited with short panting breaths for what seemed like an eternity.  
Koushiro was working slowly, deliberately. He had to push himself onto tiptoe to gain access to the last few inches that separated them. He placed his hands on the sides of Shinseki's shoulders for balance. What may have been 15 seconds of close inspection and deliberate advance felt like hours. He'd worked himself up into a state of electric desire. Finally, his breath was falling in short pants across the taller man's lips. He pushed a millimeter closer and brushed his lips tenuously across the silky expanse before him. God, it was intoxicating! He couldn't stop himself, the game he was playing with himself was at an end, his tremulous control evaporated. Hungrily, Koushiro reached forward and captured his lips fully, pressing wantonly, searching for contact with all surfaces at once.  
Shinseki, to his credit, did not move a fraction of an inch the entire time. But when Izzy presented him with an encompassing display of his want, he could not remain motionless a moment longer. He leaned downward, into those warm lips, crushing their bodies together with his strong arms.  
A deft tongue darted willfully from Koushiro's mouth, licking across the detective's lips. It didn't even have to be asked - Abe's lips opening automatically, his tongue inviting the other inside.  
Their blood crackled when the two organs touched, grazing across each other in their inspection - greeting, tasting. Abe pushed Koushiro backwards into the wall of the nearest brick building. The freezing chill greeting his back and the heat that was attacking him from the front was a heady and potent mixture. God, he felt alive!  
Shinseki continued his assault, using the wall to trap his prey and push skin and flesh as close together as possible. Damn the layers of clothing! It was still contact, and while his wanton tongue continued its hungry quest, his belly and thighs pressed closer, needing to draw the two men as close as possible. His hot and tumescent groin crushed into Koushiro's own growing, unbidden need.  
"Wait..." It was the last and saddest word Shinseki wanted to hear - Izzy pulling away slightly as the situation coalesced around him. "Wait - I think, I think we should stop." Like hell! Shinseki tried to mask his gritting teeth by biting his lip in frustration. Izzy tried to push the taller man off, slowly and only half-determinedly.  
"Why? Did I do something wrong, Koushiro-kun?" He attempted to put on his best sad and forlorn face - it wasn't difficult.  
"No, no... I just..." Izzy sucked in a gulpful of air and shut his eyes, concentrating on getting the words out. "I just need to say no. I just want to be able to slow down." He opened his eyes and presented Shinseki with a desirous stare that would leave weaker men in melted pools on the concrete.  
Shinseki's heart merely skipped two beats, his words caught in his throat.  
He nodded acceptingly at the pretty little creature before him that was now  _his_. The detective extended his elbow for the smaller man, and the two began their journey to a warm and inviting abode through the falling snow.  
  
  
  
  
Ken woke abruptly when a baton tapped him in between his ribs, jostling him from potent dreams of pain.  
"It's noon, you sack of shit. Get UP." The gravel voice accosted his ears as the sun shot into his opening eyes. "It's noon, and there's no fucking breakfast left. On your  _feet_  before lunch is gone too." The guard grabbed the collar of his shirt, dragging him vertical with surprising effortlessness. Ken's felt like a ragdoll in his grip, boneless and liquid. It wasn't until his feet finally touched the ground that the pressure shot from the soles of his feet, through his knees, into his stomach, up his esophagus, and nearly out his mouth. He pursed his lips together to keep his empty stomach from heaving with the pain.  
Fuck! He hurt bad, ALL over. He was one huge bruise. Ken could feel nerves twitching in a desperate attempt to escape through his skin and escape the ache pulsing through his bones.  
  
"Not hungry, I take it?" Ken tried his best to throw a menacing, 'no shit' glare at the guard. He could barely manage a blurry stare.  
"That's just fine with me. Detective wants to see you anyway." The guard would give no sympathy. However, he was in no mood to struggle getting the obviously beaten man up the stairs.  
He used his baton as one would with an animal, prodding him at arm's length to get the pitiful, blue haired man to shuffle his way out of the now empty holding cell, down the endless hallway, and onto the elevator instead. Ken was poked until he was standing, cowering, at the far side of the metal box. As far away from the impassive guard as possible as they ascended from the basement to floor 3.  
The jolting start was just gentle enough to NOT cause his knees to buckle.  
  
Into the office then, where the once-busy secretaries hesitated at their tasks, all eyes turning to Ken. What a sight - what a feeling! All eyes were on him, staring. It was grossly unpleasant to be watched and scrutinized by so many faces. Many of which, pretty little brunettes, were now stifling giggles behind their demure hands. The rage started to build in him.  
What was so fucking funny? Yes, perhaps he was clothed in prison attire, and yes sure, he was walking funny, and fine, yes, his arms were bruised a fantastic blue hue.  
Why was that reason to laugh? Did they have any idea what he'd gone through last night?! The promise of a return to that pain and worse... Ken couldn't bring himself to think about it.  
So why were they  _fucking laughing_?!!!  
He was trembling now, not just from pain, but from the desire to unleash pure unadulterated violence on their coiffed heads.  
  
The guard had jabbed him in between two very sensitive ribs, eliciting a half-yelp of pain and causing his eyes to shift forward and his feet to resume their journey. The door ahead of him was again marked "Lt Det. Abe".  
His tormentor knocked assertively on said door, which opened soundlessly. The blonde detective was standing calmly with the door knob in his hands.  
"Won't you come in, Mr Ichijouji?" He nearly purred.  
  
Ken mentally kicked himself for visibly swallowing in response to the sly invitation. He was fucking scared. He didn't even want to admit it to himself, but the poking and prodding pushed him inside the threshold and Abe quickly shut it behind him.  
"I trust you slept well last night, Mr Ichijouji?" Abe cocked a smug eyebrow at him as he settled behind his desk. Ken took a deep breath, less visible this time, and adjusted his shoulders defiantly.  
"Quite. Your accommodations are most hospitable." The last word was spat from between his teeth.  
It was only too easy for Abe to see the bruises on his arms, and he chuckled sadistically.  
"It seems you're also getting on well with your cell mates?" Ken bristled. What was the point of bantering in this inane manner? He could not understand what the detective's end game was.  
"They are a jovial bunch of fellows." Ken's eyes narrowed with a hiss of breath. "Why did you want to see me, Detective? Let's cut the bullshit." He received a light laugh from Abe.  
"I only wanted to check on your well-being and let you know we are closing in on the killer of the priest at St Barnard's." He smirked triumphantly. "It's only a matter of time, the lab will be back with the results in no more than two days."  
A tense shock flew through Ken's abused stomach muscles, but he did not let it reach his shoulders or his eyes. He was going to play this as cool as possible.  
"That's fantastic news, detective. I must applaud you and your top-notch team. I had no idea that a perpetrator smart enough to elude Kitami's finest for weeks would be stupid enough to leave behind a decisive piece of evidence ignored in the initial forensic sweep." Ken couldn't help but smirk, the trademark curl of his lips spreading across his mouth and into his superior eyes. But Shinseki would not be deterred.  
"Right you are to question the serendipity of this information." His eyes lit dangerously. "Let's just say we suddenly found a way to match an untraceable DNA sample back to its owner." This cryptic statement did nothing to diminish Ken's confident facade. "And," he continued, "some very incriminating and  _intimate_  testimony to guide us, provided willingly by one of the minor priests."  
Violet eyes shot open at that, hoping to incinerate the smug detective with waves of rage. He could not believe what Abe had just said, much less intimated.  
"Surprised? You should be. In fact, the red-headed priest in question told me everything..." he paused for effect, "over dinner."  
Ken could feel his pulse pounding in his ears. The pain of his beating was a far distant concern. Shinseki was not-so-tactfully telling him he'd gained Koushiro's trust enough to be taken to dinner - he could imagine it in an impressive, dimly lit restaurant - and to tell him about his and Ken's relationship.  
Ha! Relationship. You couldn't even call it that. Had Koushiro gone so far as to tell this detective in detail about their 'shameful' relationship? If so, perhaps he'd also convinced himself that Ken had simply forced himself onto the unwilling priest, that their time spent together was nothing more than molestation.  
He gripped the chair arms he was handcuffed to so hard his knuckles and nails turned white.  
  
"No smart comeback, Mr Ichijouji?" Abe confidently rose, striding to the other side of the desk, intruding into Ken's personal space. "Don't worry, I didn't expect any." He leaned down towards Ken, playing absentmindedly with the ballpoint pen in his hand. "The best part is I have another opportunity tonight to glean information from this fantastic source. This fantastic, lithe... flexible... supple... willin-" He did not have a chance to finish his list of lusty adjectives when Ken sharply realized his right hand was not handcuffed down. With blinding speed, he brought his free hand up to Shinseki's dangerously lowered throat, gripping it without mercy, fully intent on crushing his windpipe.  
Shinseki's hand, previously playing with his pen, brought it up menacingly to Ken's pulsing jugular. As he struggled for breath, a smile spread across the detective's purpling face. He took the metal tip and pressed it into Ken's flesh, promising a painful death.  
  
Checkmate.  
  
Reluctantly, the raven-haired man released his grip. The sick smile on Abe's face did not waver as he slowly pulled away from dangerous proximity with Ken and placed the pen back on his desk.  
"God, your buttons are so easy to push." He dismissed him with one hand as he settled behind his desk like nothing had happened. Long, confident fingers used his phone to page his secretary, thereby ending their meeting. "And so  _fun_. Trust me and don't worry - I'll take excellent care of Kou-kun."  
With this last stab and no words on Ken's lips, the guard from before entered the room, soundlessly released Ken from his chair, and prodded him towards the door.  
"Revenge does not long remain unrevenged," Ken muttered menacingly and the door was swiftly shut.  
  
Abe actively chose to disregard the thinly veiled threat. After all, what could he possibly do - stuck and rotting in prison? And the best part? He could pretty much keep him there as long as he liked.  
Rather than worry, he kicked his feet onto his desk, lounging decadently and lacing his fingers behind his head. It was nearly wrapped up.  
  
No, they had not gathered any DNA evidence at the scene, despite his previous admission to Ken. No, Koushiro had not said anything about Ken, certainly nothing incriminating. No, it was all false, designed to push Ken to his limit, to see what reaction he'd get.  
Violence. Pure, swift violence.  
There are several reasons criminals resort to violence past the immediate need to obtain cash or valuables. Crimes of passion without monetary gratification stem from a few simple intrinsic origins: boredom, thrill-seeking, pleasure, or threat to self-esteem.  
Certainly Ken's display - choking the life from him for a few simple but caustic words - was a plain reaction to what he saw as humiliation, a bitter transgression. Shinseki ticked the last checkbox on his mental profile sheet.  
"Proclivity to violence, swift and unrestrained." Thank you, Professors Baumeister and Campbell.  
  
Now, how to get some definitive forensic evidence... Shinseki, proudly smiling, picked up his phone and quickly dialed a familiar number.  
"Kitami Morgue, Honda speaking."  
"Honda-sama, this is Detective Abe. I need a favor."  
  
  
  
  



	12. Penance

  
  
The concrete met Ken's back with a cold, firm handshake. It was strictly business, and the wall didn't want to be there anymore than Ken did.  
Shu, his short tormentor, was standing behind the tall, nameless brute that was pushing him up against the wall, putting pressure on his ribs to the point where Ken was sure they were going to crack. He couldn't cry out, couldn't struggle. His body was one giant, purpling bruise. Each muscle groaning out in agony. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't  _think_  beyond the old pain and the new pain that was promised.  
All Shu could do was giggle and smirk at him. The larger one's smile grew hearing his accomplice chuckle and he removed one of his hands from Ken's chest to his face, twisting it up against the cold stone, wanting to push it right through to the other side.  
He could not see Shu now, and could only glimpse the evil hulk pinning him against the wall out of the corner of his eye.  
But he could feel Shu's presence, his flesh shivering and goosepimpling - he knew he was close.  
"Mmm, my pretty little toy..." Oh, god! He was closer than Ken expected. He could feel the whisper glide out of his mouth and slash across his bared neck. Shu began to terrify him in the best way possible - by showing Ken his desire.   
His tongue licked across Ken's neck, leaving a trail of saliva. Shit! He just wanted to reach out and wipe it away and then WIPE the floor with these two. If only, if only...  
How did they get the drop on him again? He was watching them very carefully tonight - did he un-focus his eyes too long? Did he turn to glare at another menace for a split second? It was all foggy now in his brain. He was trying his best to block it out. There was nothing else he could do!  
Shu brought his hands up to Ken's chest, slinking in under his shirt and scratching venomously down his bare skin. He held it in, didn't cry out - his jaw tensed with the pain, his neck stiffening in reaction instead. Shu's wicked fingers found Ken's nipple and smashed down on it, nails biting in and drawing blood. He couldn't help it now, whimpering out the shock and agony that was rippling through his body.  
What a mistake.  
  
Shu chuckled again, lust tinging his voice. The larger man grinned wide at the demented encouragement Ken had given him. His mouth cracked into a wide grin, displaying his crooked teeth. Ken could see enough to watch his tongue dance out and lick lasciviously across his lips, anticipating.  
"Mmm, do it again, lover." The taller man spoke, but Ken wasn't sure to whom - to Shu, encouraging him, or to Ken, begging him to scream. Shu took his words to heart in any case, teeth sinking into Ken's neck. He didn't break the skin, but it was almost enough. The smaller man's tongue licked out again, caressing the depressions his teeth had made. Unsatisfied, his hand drifted down to Ken's groin, gathering his clothed penis in his hand, stroking it firmly, not painfully, but firmly. Ken ground his teeth together - it did NOT feel good - it did NOT. He was begging his brain not to send blood to his member, begging it not to see the sensation as pleasure.  
Worthless fucking brain.  
  
"You know, Kaneda, I think he likes it. You're a  _sick_  freak, do you know that?" Shu whispered cuttingly in his ear, perceiving Ken's developing hardness. The taller man, Kaneda, cut in and painted Ken's darkening thoughts a different shade of black.  
"I think he likes it, but I don't think he's ready." Kaneda moved his hands from Ken's face and chest to grab his shirt and drag him off his feet. Without thought, seemingly without effort, Kaneda used his impressive bulk to fling Ken across the cell. In the brief second before he was airborne, Ken could see the tall man strain with the effort. He didn't have time to think as gravity tore him to the floor. His head bounced lightly against the concrete, sending stars shooting in front of his eyes.  
Had he been given 5 seconds to gain his breath and shake his vision clear, perhaps things would have been different. Kaneda did not give him time to regain his senses. He was on top of him immediately, beating his fists into Ken's stomach, creating mush from his torso. The bruises from last night gave way to popped capillaries, which gave way to leaking, open sores. The front of his shirt was steadily becoming damp, stained with blood.  
It was equal opportunity blood - Ken's broken skin, Kaneda's broken knuckles. The pain was intense, it was an overload. He felt a rib give way, heard the soft pop of it slipping out of its proper place. The pain was all around him, cutting of his rational thought, cutting off his breath. His eyes glazed over as the world began to fog.  
Ken's eyes fluttered and Shu, ever watchful, was on Kaneda immediately. He placed a calm hand on the man's frantic, punishing arm.  
"That's enough." Two soft words and Kaneda ceased his onslaught, slowly picking himself off of Ken, standing, brushing off his effort with nonchalance.  
Shu crouched next to Ken, peering at him with cold indifference.  
"Have you had enough, precious?" His words were as cold as ice. Ken tried to push back the darkness that was encroaching on his vision, he really did. His pupils rolled back into his head despite his efforts, and Shu's hand shot out viciously, across his cheek, commanding him to keep a finger-hold on consciousness. All Ken could do was moan pathetically, even the small effort of breathing causing absolute agony. "Yes, I think you've had enough." He snapped his fingers in direction to Kaneda and the larger man knelt beside Ken, wrapping his arms around his tortured middle and forcing him roughly to his knees.  
  
In the fog of his mind, already trying to shut down again, Ken could hear the distinctive metal clicking of a zipper being undone. The adrenaline kicked in then, and he prayed in that same second that it hadn't. He was now responsive enough to stare at the smaller man, who lounged on the floor in front of him, hand carefully coaxing his erection out of his pants. Ken could feel the panic rise as he became hyper aware of the situation.  
"What did we tell you last night, pretty? We're going to beat you. We're going to beat you until you have no fight left." Shu smirked evilly. "Do you have any fight left, sweetheart?" To reinforce the point, Kaneda balled his fingers into a fist and threw them into Ken's stomach so hard his knees left the ground for a moment.  
The pain - the pain! He thought for sure he was going to black out when Shu wrapped his cold fingers around Ken's chin, forcing him to look him full in the face.  
"Well? Do you?" Faced with Kaneda's fist balling up again, poised to crush the life out of his fragile organs, Ken quickly shook his head. Just that simple movement caused his vision to blur, and he had to take a second to lick his own dry lips and try to make the world sit still.  
When it complied, he saw that Shu had wasted no time - the leaking head of his apparent erection was mere centimeters from Ken's lips. "Then start." His command was simple, and it left a cold ball of fear in Ken's throat. What could he possibly do? Ken licked his lips again, trying this time to soften them for the inevitable. Slowly, perhaps too slowly, Ken opened his mouth and descended onto Shu's throbbing penis. In a last display of dominance, partly impatience, Shu grabbed the back of Ken's head and forced it all into his throat. He was gagging, choking, around it. God, what could he possibly do?! He tried to shut it out, tried to imagine it wasn't happening, tried to imagine it was someone else's dick he was suffocating on.  
Koushiro?  
  
The thought brought tears to his eyes as he worked, up and down, licking, sucking. The flesh tasted putrid and there was no escaping the terrible scent of the man's skin.  
"Oh, cry for me..." Shu panted out, obviously lost in the sensation of exerting pure power over someone. He rammed his dick into Ken's mouth, bruising even the delicate surfaces on the roof of his mouth. Finally, finally, after what seemed like hours but what was only a few short minutes, Ken could feel the violating member quiver in his mouth, throbbing, pushing out its white desire, filling his mouth and spilling down Ken's chin.  
  
Shu laid his head back on the floor, utterly spent, satisfied with his sick self. Ken tried to sit up, close his sore jaw, wipe the sticky shame from his chin...  
"Nuh-huh," Kaneda muttered menacingly. "My turn."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Article 45, Paragraph 2 of the Japanese Prison Code stipulates inmates may only be visited by relatives. However, the soft and considering face of the admittance officer took one look at the priest, rosary beads grasped tightly in hand, pious face lost in ethereal thoughts, and with a nod, let him through.  
However, the officer was not naive enough to let Koushiro pass without stepping through the metal detector first.  
  
When it showed nothing nefarious on his person, the quiet redhead was showed into a waiting area. It was conspicuously devoid of any comfort. No padding on the stiff plastic chairs, no end tables, and certainly no magazines to sit on the non-existent end tables.  
Just a helpless row of yellow chairs, facing an uncaring white wall.  
No windows, no exit, save for the one he'd just passed through.  
"Please wait here, Father." The guard left him in the stark room, void of anything to distract his racing thoughts. What was he going to say to Ken? What was he going to do? Moreover, would Ken be pleased to see him, or in this time of reflection, have found a way to pin all his problems on Izzy?  
He let out a ragged breath, trying his best to still his pulse. No, no, no - Ken would be happy to see him. He'd probably have the other inmates eating out of his hand, having whipped them into a cohesive unit, already planning to depose the guards and gain control of the station. A smirk ghosted over Koushiro's face. Yes, that was the Ken he knew. The tyrant-like features of his personality never having left.  
  
Was that a good thing? As a child, Koushiro hated him for his arrogance and seeming omnipotence. But he'd also connected with the genius through their analytic tendencies and love of knowledge.  
Now? God, he loved his powerful presence, the way he simply took control of a situation, took control of Koushiro's body. But then... There was the doubt... The fear that a vicious predator lurked beneath the surface. One who had killed another man.  
Or had he?  
  
The officer returned, curtly asking Izzy to follow him. Izzy gathered his cassock and stood, following with soft steps. His heart returned to his throat.  
The man led him down a white featureless hallway to a white featureless door. It was opened for him and he cautiously stepped inside. The guard followed and shut the door behind them. There were three of the uniform yellow chairs facing three large windows of plexiglas. Behind the middle window sat Ken.  
As Izzy glanced at him, he sucked in an audible gasp, eyes widening at the horrific sight. This was NOT the Ken he expected to see. This Ken slouched more than sat, his eyes heavy-lidded. Normally sparkling and piercing, they were dull and ringed by deep dark lines. He looked like he hadn't gotten any sleep in days, and in fact hadn't. His crown of hair was a wild mess, greasy and frantic to escape his head, sticking up at all angles.  
But it was his porcelain skin that took the incarceration worst. His cheekbones bore purple bruises, and the skin at the corner of his mouth was healing poorly from being split open.  
The side of his white neck bore red marks in the shape of  _teeth_.  
"Ken..." The rest of the words stuck in his throat.  
  
"Hello, love." Ken managed a smirk with the intact side of his mouth. The supervising guard gave Izzy a quizzical look, beginning to understand that he might've mistaken the priest's intention in comforting this prisoner.  
Izzy moved toward the yellow chair nearest Ken's window and disjointedly sat down.  
"What the hell happened to you?" The uncharacteristically blunt words poured from his mouth.  
"A lot. I went to the beach one day, and had a picnic the next. What the  _hell_  do you  _think_  happened?", he snapped.  
"I'm sorry..." The redhead hung his head, rebuking himself for asking such an insensitive question. God, he really didn't want to start perusing the possible reasons for Ken's abused visage. This was completely the opposite of what he'd expected from Ken: cocky, self-assured, controlling.  
He had so many questions to ask, but at that moment he really didn't want to start. Izzy felt if he looked at Ken again rather keeping his focus on his hands in his own lap, he would simply burst into tears. With a deep breath, a thought to the rapidly wasting time, and his eyes locked on his hands, Koushiro began...  
"Why?" Why? Why, oh  _why?_  "Is it true?" Please,  _please_  don't let it be true. "And why me?" He swallowed hard, trying to keep his composure. He heard Ken take a deep breath as well. At least it was hard for him too.  
  
"Why? That's simple. Because I could." Izzy's startled ears heard a soft chuckle. "That, and he was a bigoted bastard." Koushiro's dark eyes jumped up to Ken's, surprised and angry. "What? You didn't think a  _Catholic_  priest would be a homophobe? Don't make me laugh, Kou." Again, the wicked smirk. "You don't know it, but I sat in on several sermons his holiness gave, trying to get out of the cold for an hour or two. I think I'm smart enough to tell when someone is directing unwarranted hate at a particular demographic." His eyes grew distant as he remembered, leafing through pages of memory. "I remember planning to teach him a lesson. Wrap my fingers around his celibate manhood and give him shameful pleasure at the hands of another man. Make him feel the full force of his hate. I remember grabbing a long, sharp, steel, letter opener from the desk in the front of the church. I remember holding it in my hands and fantasizing about pushing it between his ribs. Reveling in the fact that the police could never pin it to me. I'm just a transient, remember? It would be the glory of a perfect murder, constructed with the brilliance of my mind... But here's the damnedest thing," he tore his eyes from Koushiro's. "I can't remember actually doing it."  
"What do you mean you  _don't remember?_ " Koushiro spat the words, thoroughly enraged at hearing Ken fess up to it, detailing how he planned it, how he desired to kill.  
"I don't know, I don't know. I was standing in front of his door, gripping the blade, and then... Nothing. Maybe I was coked up?" Ken shook his head, not too quickly, wincing at the pain in his neck. "No, I remember...  _us_... I remember that cold tile floor." He returned his piercing gaze to Izzy, making the former priest blush.  
"So do I."  
"I remember leaving and not having blood or holy water on my coat. I remember reading about the murder in the paper, about how there was no knife wounds, only the indentations of the assailant's fingers in his neck." Ken's brows drew together over his punished face in thought. "Who else would have done it? But why the hell didn't I use the fucking letter opener?"  
Koushiro licked his lips, trying to push the hope out of his head. No. No - this was just a ploy for sympathy. Ken did it, Ken looked down into the priest's eyes as he died.  
"Exactly, Ken. Who else  _would_  have done it? You're the only person I know who would get off on a power trip like that. Who else had motive? Who else had access?" God, he was mad now. The nerve Ken had to put doubt in his mind! "What if it was  _I_  that killed Hiromiya? That's what you want me to say, right? That's what you want me to think? I'm the one who found him, right? What if I took that opportunity, with the church empty, to kill him? You're pathetic." He crossed his legs disdainfully, tossing his head to the side, refusing to look in those lying blue eyes.  
"You're right. That is silly." Ken sighed, his banter curtailed. "I don't want to talk about that. We only have 30 minutes, 10 of which are now gone." He leaned in close to the glass, trying his best to look earnest. "What I want to talk about is you. You and me. Us. I know it's sappy, but it's true. You wanted to know why I picked you?" His eyes played out the smile that his lips would not show. "I didn't  _pick_  you, Koushiro, or  _plan_  anything. You fell into my lap as a wonderful surprise. At first it was just lust, but you know by now that I love you. I love thinking about you. What else do I have to keep me going in here?" The edge of his mouth crooked in a sad smile. "This place is an utter hell hole, be perfectly aware of that. I want to think about more pleasant things. I want to think about spring." He ran his thin fingers through his hair. "God, this winter has been long. I can barely remember the trees being green."  
Koushiro deigned to move his eyes back to Ken's face. It was true. The snow seemed like it had settled over the city and would stay forever, an unwelcome guest.  
"I want to see the azaleas come back to the hillsides. I want to see the ice melt and the rivers swell. I want to walk through the fields with you, pleasant afternoon after pleasant afternoon." There were slight tears in the corners of his eyes.  
Tears in his eyes? In HIS eyes? How dare he be the one to cry...  
Koushiro decided to be cruel and dash the tears away.  
  
"Funny you should talk of the river. Do you know I almost threw myself into Tokoro-gawa one night?" A pitiless smile crawled across Izzy's face. "I had my hands on the rail, I had my feet over the edge. I don't know what pulled me back." He knew damn well what had pulled him back. But that could wait...  
The tears did not evaporate from Ken's eyes. Rather, they fled, running down his cheeks.  
"You... you were going to kill yourself?!" Ken's disbelieving voice whispered. "Koushiro, oh my god..." The harsh smirk on Izzy's face grew.  
"I WAS going to. But something pulled me back. Some ONE pulled me back." He shouldn't be enjoying this, but GOD he was! The shocked look on Ken's face asked the question that his lips refused to.  
"Who? I think you know him. He's a bit arrogant, but he's detail oriented, and he has a  _great_  body." Izzy's smile grew as Ken's descended into despair. "I call him Shin-kun, but everyone else calls him Detective." He pretended to muse on that. "In fact, perhaps I'll call him  _Detective_  tonight. It may just spice things up."  
Ken's demeanor flew rapidly from abject horror to rage.  
"God, he was telling the truth... You promiscuous little whore!!"  
"Guilty. But that's okay, I'm not too concerned about appearances anymore. I quit the priesthood." Quit, thrown out... Just simple semantics.  
"It's probably best that you did. I hope you  _burn_ , you lying little shit. All I did was love you! That's more that anyone else has given you." Ken shot a piercing look at Izzy. "I  _will_  get out of here, and when I do, don't think that I'll forget this. I may suffer in here, I may have horrible things done to me, but I will take it all in stride to have the chance to do to you what I SHOULD have done to that priest!" Izzy shrank back slightly under the threat. But he would not be overwhelmed.  
"Such false promises. That's all your 'love' was." The tears grew in Izzy's eyes as well. "Don't think I haven't suffered. Whatever they do to you in here, I have suffered worse. There are so many things I haven't told you, so many things I forbid myself to remember." He choked back a sob that threatened to burst out his mouth. "I refuse to discuss it with filth like you."  
Izzy stood and turned to go, clearly dismissing any attempt at further conversation. The guard, who by now was thoroughly scandalized, opened the door swiftly. "Let me leave you with this little bit of scripture to console your 'guilt' ridden mind. To help you make sense of this incarceration and whatever ordeals you may be suffering. St Matthew said and you would do well to remember: 'Blessed are they that suffer persecution for  _justice's_  sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.'"  
  
  
  
  
**********************  
  
Notes: I tried to make Japanese prison as accurate as possible (information gleaned from the web circa 2008). Visits are normally reserved for family only, although the warden can decide on a case-by-case basis to admit non-relatives if 'deemed necessary'. I'm assuming religious counsel would fall into this category.  
Also - visits are limited to 30 minutes. There's pretty much no exception. There's also nothing that stipulates the prisoner and visitor have privacy. A prison officer is required to witness the visit, even if it's a discussion between a lawyer and prisoner.  
Further - the law states that a suspect can be held in jail for up to 28 days without even having to charge them with a crime.  
There are very few prisoners' rights in Japan, and their legal system has come under scrutiny from other developed nations.  
(Uncertain on legal process in Japan in 2018.  Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer!)  
  
  



	13. Limits

  
  
Night comes swiftly in winter. The sun flirts with the horizon, stretching its arms across the skyline, over the rooftops. The sky turns from milky white to soft gold. Soft gold melts away into deeper shades, deeper yet, deeper, until the whole atmosphere is glowing in burnished auburn.  
And then, just as swiftly, the darkness comes. It envelops, it drifts into every corner and alleyway. The sodium and halogen lights bravely keep it back from their small lighted halos.  
But everywhere else, the black and cold spread. An inky world of ice.  
  
Kitami was covered in the winter night. For Ken, it brought a chill to the very center of his bones.  
Koushiro was... Probably right now... Oh, god. It made him ill to think about it. For all the terrible games he'd played in his mind, for all the wicked evils he'd committed, he loved Koushiro. He hadn't meant to fall in love, only seduce someone supposedly incorruptible.  
It had been Izzy. It had been unexpected. He wasn't supposed to fall in love, but he did.  
  
And now... Now he was with that goddamned Detective. The thought of them together made his blood run cold.  
And he was here, far away from anyplace where he could DO something about it. Stuck in this prison, with real worries to occupy his mind.  
  
There was a real threat. Ken knew it was one which would slowly approach, slowly corner him. Slowly. One which knew just when to then swiftly move into position and conquer.  
Like the cold in his blood, like the cold in the night.  
  
Ken's flesh goosepimpled and futilely tried to run away, down the back of his shirt. Shu and Kaneda approached and the other prisoners fled. Cold smiles plastered on their faces.  
"Good evening, sweetheart. What are you in the mood for tonight?" Shu's menacing words were punctuated by Kaneda's fist pounding dramatically into his flattened palm.  
What are you in the mood for? A beating  _then_  humiliation, or just the humiliation?  
Ken staggered to his feet, using the wall for balance. His ribs still felt like they would pull apart at any second, the pain was blistering. There was no way he was ready for an encore.  
"I'm not in the mood to fight, if that's what you're implying." He licked his dry lips, anticipating the horrors in store for him.  
"That's great news. I'm so glad you finally see our point - there's no use struggling." Shu turned to the larger man, a wry smile on his lips. "What are YOU up for tonight, Kaneda?" A thoughtful expression mused on his face, mentally picking out his flavor of pleasure from a menu of violations.  
"I think I'd like to see what he feels like on the  _inside_." Shock tore through Ken's eyes - they had said  _nothing_  like that while they were beating him yesterday. Oh god, he was completely at their mercy. Whether it was a blow job or whether they were fucking him up the ass, he had absolutely no control.  
"Excellent choice, I was thinking the same thing." Ken's trapped heart threatened to beat its way out of his chest, if simply just to get away from the inevitable horror that was approaching. They were close now, they had their hands on him now. They were turning him to face the wall now.  
Oh god, oh god...  
Shu's small hand grazed across the back of Ken's waist and dove into his prison-issue trousers. Bile crept up his throat as the cold hand cupped his ass. No, this couldn't be happening!  
He felt those evil little fingers coiling their way towards his opening, rough nails scraping on his skin. No, no, no!!  
He could hear them both undoing their zippers... Were they going to fuck him at the same time?!  
The fingers slipped through his tight, quivering barrier and started to stroke his insides...  
Large hands gripped his pants and started to pull them down...  
And Ken snapped.  
  
The rusty judo skills kicked in and Ken's brain shut down. He turned abruptly, grabbed Kaneda's shoulders, and executed a perfect  _morote seoinage_  move, flipping his assailant over his shoulder and onto the concrete mercilessly. Shu, to surprised to react, was grabbed under his knee and thrown, much less dropped, to the floor. The adrenaline was pumping, the oxygen was flowing. Ken was in full on panic mode and too far gone to feel the pain from his previous wounds.  
He watched carefully as Kaneda got to his feet, rage written across his features.  
"You want to fight? Fight first, fuck later. That's fine with me." Rather than approaching, fists flying, as he had previously, Kaneda assumed a  _kata_  stance, eyes narrowed, ready for battle. The adrenaline flowed faster along with a single phrase in Ken's mind. 'Oh, SHIT.'  
Judo's major tenets focus around being able to overcome an enemy whose mass is greater than yours. He should have been in a perfect position to hand these jokers their asses now that he was focused and prepared. But with the pain in his muscles tightening and with the new knowledge that Kaneda knew some form of karate, all Ken could feel was fear blossoming in the pit of his stomach.  
  
Kaneda threw his weight to one foot and Ken knew a kick was on the way. He instinctively ducked, but his opponent anticipated and threw his outstretched foot in the space where Ken's head was trying to hide. Light danced across his vision as he just managed to step back out of the reach of a second blow. An instant later and a fist was barreling towards him. Ken dove out of the way and grabbed what he could of Kaneda's shirt, trying to throw him into the wall. It only served to bring him closer, right where Kaneda could do the most damage. He grabbed Ken's shirt in turn, lifted the lighter man off his feet, and dropped him on the cold, unforgiving ground.  
Shu was instantly there, holding him down by the throat.  
"We'll teach you not to fight. We'll teach you to be obedient." Kaneda took this fantastic opportunity to repeatedly and viciously kick Ken in the stomach. Trying to roll away, he brought his unbound hands up and searched for Shu's eyes. Finding them, he wasted no time in driving his thumbs into the soft sockets. Shu screamed an animal cry. "Motherfucker!" He released Ken and curled on his side, cupping his bleeding face. Kaneda picked Ken up before he had a chance to stand and threw him full body into the wall in retaliation for his comrade's mutilated eyes. The look on his face was pure murder. Ken crumpled to the ground from the impact and Kaneda spun him onto his stomach. There were no words now, only grunts of rage. He grabbed Ken's arm and twisted it back, back, back, until it gave a loud SNAP. The pain tore through him and he screamed, long and loud. There was no movement in the arm now, it hung limply from him like a bad dream. Terror and pain clouded his eyes and he lay there gasping, trying not to think about the fact that HIS ARM had nearly been torn the fuck off. What the fuck kind of karate was this?!! He vaguely remembered hearing something about  _koppojutsu_ , bone breaking techniques, but this was insane!!  
Kaneda moved away and Ken lay there gasping, praying it was over, praying the guards would come soon, hastened by his unbridled screams. The monster of a man walked to the toilet that was installed on the far wall. He wrapped his hands around the seat of the toilet and his muscles bunched as he strained. The aluminum hinges tore free and he gripped his prize in his hands.  
Ken prayed. He prayed to nameless gods.  
Kaneda stalked back to the quivering form on the ground.  
"No, please. Please no, oh god..."  
He knelt down, grasped the black sweaty hair in his hands, raised the hard plastic weapon...  
And proceeded to destroy Ken's head.  
  
The guards found the bloody body 3 minutes later.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The cold winter night was safely locked outside. Here, out in the hallway, the night was far away, residing only as a memory - as melting snowflakes on his coat.  
His hand shook, hesitating above the knob. Turn? Yes? No?  
He pulled his fingers back, running them through his short hair instead. DID he have somewhere else to go? Where? He was, in effect,  _homeless_. It was pointless to dance around the situation.  
With that all-too-real-and-harsh word running through his head, Koushiro drew a deep breath, put the spare key in the lock, and turned the knob.  
  
The sound of running water greeted his ears as starchy smells wafted up his nose. The apartment foyer was furnished sparsely with only a coat rack, but the wood wainscoting that ran from the door and led his eyes into the living room spoke of the potential this flat held. Izzy slowly removed his shoes, eyes travelling before he would allow his feet to. The last two times he'd been here he didn't have the capacity or emotional stability to admire the simple harmony of color and style.  
The few pieces of furniture were dark colored, matching the window treatments. The wallpaper was a simple, warm beige. It left a cozy and inviting feeling in his chest, replacing the chill of the wind and snow.  
The kitchen was off to the right, out of sight. The water was turned off abruptly and a blonde head sprouted from the wall.  
"Koushiro? I didn't even hear you come in." A smile instantly spread across Shinseki's features and Izzy couldn't help but smile in return. "Hungry? I just finished the pasta. Why don't you settle in and I'll get you a plate." His sunny face disappeared again and Izzy had no choice but to comply.  
There was a basic service for two set on a small dining table on the far side of the room. Nothing overly dramatic.  
As Izzy crossed the living room, he couldn't help but admire a finely detailed rug spread across the floor. It was in complete contrast to the deep and muted shades elsewhere. Red thread wove with gold and purple in a huge octagonal floral design. The sides were decorated with geometric daisies set in a deep bed of navy. He could only stare, inexplicably entranced.  
"You like it? My mother gave it to me as some sort of grandiose house-warming present when I first moved in. I'm not quite sure what kind of rug it is." Shinseki floated out of the kitchen, all smiles and grace, in his hands two plates heaped with calamari and squid ink tagliatelle. The salty smell of the pasta was making Koushiro salivate.  
"It's gorgeous. I feel bad walking on it."  
"Don't be silly - it's probably some Hong Kong knockoff." He flashed a toothy grin at Izzy. I'll be right back.  
And indeed he was - this time with a bowl of steamed broccoli florets in one hand, a bottle of Chardonnay and two wine glasses balanced delicately in the other.  
"Wow - this is amazing!" Koushiro's gaze was now rapt on the feast that had been set on the table. "I didn't know you could cook like this."  
"There's a lot about me you don't know," Shinseki teased. The way he wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, Koushiro couldn't fight the light chuckle escaping his throat. What was it about Abe that made him drop his guard so readily? He knew precisely that this gorgeous dinner was a setup, an excuse for wine and romance, an excuse for them to get closer... It was a blatant seduction. Shinseki had made promises that he would not overtly push the redhead. He was perhaps stretching the rules...  
Abe swiftly uncorked the wine and poured gracefully, the gold liquid sliding into the glasses without a glug.  
"What shall we toast to?" Izzy just stared at him wordlessly. Toast? He hardly felt in the mood to celebrate. His lover was a killer, he had been betrayed, he was a carnal sinner, and he'd just been excommunicated.  
"I'll make that your call."  
"Hmm..." Shinseki swirled the chardonnay in his glass thoughtfully. "To the future. I don't think there's anything more fitting." That was fair. Each man could interpret it in his own way. Shinseki - to the future of his career, to a probable future with Koushiro, to the future of the evening... Izzy - to moving on from the past, to growing, atoning, to perhaps one day being comfortable in his own skin.  
"To the future."  
  
The wine was perfectly cold and it snaked its way down his throat smoothly. The inviting temperature combined with the salty pasta caused Koushiro to lose track of the number of times Shinseki had done the honor of refilling his glass. As the meal progressed, he cared less and less. Shinseki had kept to his word - no overt flirtations, no propositions. The conversation was light and both men were delighted to find they were equally informed on current events. It was such a simple joy actually  _talking_  to someone, Izzy mused. With Ken... Ken. He saved him only a quick thought. Even after Izzy's hurtful words, his heart grew tight thinking about him. He chastised himself for being so weak.  
Ken - it had been minimal talking and mostly fucking. Conversation and really connecting was so wholesome. The more Shinseki and Koushiro talked, the more he learned about the blonde. He was halfway witty, sometimes funny, and becoming more and more attractive, if that was possible.  
Then again, the wine could be augmenting things.  
  
Similar thoughts were passing through Shinseki's head. God, it was wonderful to actually talk with someone. Half the guys at the gay bars were simply looking for meat and kept the conversations short. There was always the obligatory pickup line followed by the compliments on either his attire, hair, or ass. Then came the predictable 'want to go back to my place?'. It wasn't as if he wasn't also looking for a good lay, but where was the chase? Where was the verbal foreplay?  
The other half - all they DID was talk! About themselves, about their careers, about their conquests. A great body was one thing, but who wanted to be bored half to death while trying to get their clothes off?  
Koushiro - god, he was something different altogether. Politics, technology, local events, all while feasting on his slender features, depthless eyes, smooth fingers, supple lips... And imagining what they were capable of...  
"I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but I have to say something." Shinseki produced a small, disarming smile. "You are so utterly gorgeous right now. I'm just taking a mental picture so I always remember you like this." Izzy didn't know what to say. The compliment had been delivered with such unexpected timing. It was cheesy, but crafted in such a silky way that he couldn't help but return the smile.  
"Well, thank you... This was such a lovely dinner, and thank you again for taking me in. I don't know how I'm going to pay you back for this... I keep thinking about the future and what lies in store for me. I've got to get back in the job market now." He shook his head frustratedly. "I don't know where to begin! I don't even want to think about it... It's all so overwhelming."  
"There's absolutely no reason to pay me back. If you think about it, I was the one who put you in this position in the first place." Shinseki's face was full of guilt. "If I hadn't..." He sighed in frustration. "You wouldn't have to worry about finding a job, making ends meet... I know you don't want to hear it, but I am so, so, sorry." Koushiro chuckled.  
"You're right, I don't want to hear it. It's my fault and you're being generous letting me stay here. Thank you." He stood, reaching for Abe's empty plate. "At least let me clean up after you were so kind to cook."  
  
Izzy gathered the silverware as well and started the water in the sink. Shinseki started to clean up the leftovers. The ratio of food to dishes was disproportionate, and soon the blonde found himself with nothing to do but stare at Koushiro as he scrubbed. His arms were soapy and in the effort, he'd carelessly wiped suds onto his cheek. He was adorable and deliciously sexy at the same time. Shinseki couldn't hide his blatant ogling, he leaned casually on the counter top and gazed.  
Little by little, Izzy became aware he was being watched. What was he going to say? 'Why are you looking at me?' It was too embarrassing and quite literally the wrong approach. Not to mention he knew the truth - it was gathering as crimson on his cheeks. But he couldn't keep quiet - the silence was thick and the blush soon deepened and spread to his ears.  
"What?"  
"What what?"  
"What are you doing?"  
"Nothing."  
A small little smirk grew on Shinseki's face. It was difficult for Izzy to keep his mind on the dishes when he was being scrutinized so. He could feel those green eyes running up and down his body, lingering, probing, watching.  
It was making him undeniably hot.  
He was suddenly aware of a warmth growing not only in his face, but in his groin. He licked his lips nervously - it was one thing to be watched, during a sermon, during communion - it was quite another to be studied intently by such a predatory creature. Shinseki's eyes licked over him. He could feel his gaze gliding across his skin.  _'Do the dishes, Izzy. Just do the stupid fucking dishes.'_  
Shinseki couldn't take it anymore. He had been feasting on the man's inherent beauty. God! Koushiro was standing in his kitchen, full of his alcohol, doing his best to clean the dishes they had eaten on and trying not to let it show that he was plainly aware of what was transpiring.  
The nervous flicker of a pink tongue over his lips was the tipping point. Shinseki couldn't stand it anymore. He was here! He was aware, he wasn't fighting, he was accepting... Not in so many words, but-  
He was his.  
  
The detective moved behind the determined dishwasher, hovering inches away, letting him feel his body heat without actually touching him. The tension was electric. Izzy stopped in mid-scrub, muscles tensing, breath coming in shallow gulps. Shinseki slowly leaned in, chest brushing Izzy's back. He placed his hands on the counter top, careful to keep them occupied. They would tear his fucking clothes off if they weren't given something to do.  
The shorter man could feel the firmness of Shinseki's chest. It was there, flat, warm, inviting him to touch it. He knew his skin would be soft and taut if he ran his fingers over it. The dish in his hands was utterly forgotten. Shinseki lowered his head to the pale escarpment of Izzy's neck, breath running over it, preparing it for his lips. His. HIS lips.  
His lidded green eyes carefully studied the fluttering pulse. His pulse. Koushiro wanted this as much as he did and here was the proof! Shinseki lapped against his skin, tasting the light residue of sweat. He filled his warm mouth with Koushiro's flesh, sucking, licking, kissing.  
The redhead leaned back into his half-embrace, mouth open and gasping at the pleasure that was being inflicted on his sensitive neck. The warmth of his open mouth, of his chest, of the dishwater on his hands. It was a unifying comfort. He let his eyes slip shut, a small whimper escaping.  
The sound ran through Shinseki's ears, straight through his brain, down into his penis. It jumped to attention at the sound, at the primal knowledge that his beautiful little toy was here, trapped between his outstretched arms,  _enjoying_  this. His hips ground into Izzy lightly, involuntarily, seeking friction. Another gasp was his reward. Shinseki's hands finally rebelled, leaving their occupation on the Formica countertop for more enjoyable environs. They stroked up and down Izzy's forearms, mapping their shape.  
Izzy didn't dare admit it to himself, but he was enjoying this little game that had developed. He stood there, straight and rigid against the counter, hands still wet and sudsy, flat on the metal sink rim. By emitting a little sound from his lips, he could cause the blonde to do increasingly wonderful things to him. And he didn't have to move at all. He wasn't resisting, he wasn't submitting. He was passively accepting the pleasure Shinseki was only too willing to give. Passive. But powerfully in control.  
Shinseki's brain on the other hand, wasn't working at all. He could not appreciate the irony in the situation. All he could do was feel.  
And he felt Koushiro's breathing quicken, felt the blood throb in his own groin. His fingers danced their way under Izzy's shirt, possessive. They moved their way northward, smoothing, caressing, until they reached his nipples. There was only one thing left to do. Shinseki gently rubbed them between his thumbs and forefingers, smirk growing on his lips. Wickedly, he pinched down, twisting and wrenching a cry from Izzy's throat. The pain gave way to caresses, and the cry turned to a moan.  
"Liked that, did you?" Koushiro could only nod in return. He was painfully hard by this point, his erection trapped in his pants, pressing up against the cabinet door, finding only minimal relief there. He would not give up on this. He would not give in.  
He ground his teeth together and focused on keeping his hands placed  _firmly_  on the counter.  
Shinseki finally caught on. If Izzy was determined to stay in control of the situation, he was determined to wrest it from him, to make him shake and plead.  
His nimble fingers abandoned their duties on Izzy's chest and instead worked their way back to his own. A seductive moan hummed from his lips as he slowly unbuttoned his own shirt. Izzy's breath caught in his chest. He was determined not to look back, but he could well imagine what was happening. That beautiful taut chest being exposed...  
After the shirt came the pants. For dramatic effect, Shinseki unzipped them one tooth at a time, dragging out the unmistakable sound. The warmth left Izzy's back as Shinseki pulled away and pulled out his hardened length. Another moan passed through Shinseki's lips, this one fully unselfconscious, throaty and full of pleasure. Sweat beaded on Izzy's forehead. God, this was turning him on.  
But he couldn't lose, he couldn't! He glared at a ladybug crawling idly up the wall, focusing on the black spots on the tiny red back and not at the lithe creature behind him, pants now probably pooled around his ankles, pleasuring himself.  
Shinseki's resolve began to falter, hand working faster on his cock, the other bracing himself against the counter. No, no, no, no! This is NOT how it was going to work. He would not lose. Regretfully, his hand left its task and instead wormed between Izzy's lower belly and the edge of the counter. Again, painfully slowly, they worked to undo a pants zipper. Koushiro could not hold back a gasp as the fingers deftly snuck inside the edge of his pants, careful not to touch his erection and spoil the game.  
They meandered around his waist to Izzy's back, slowly, slowly, pulled them down. A moan escaped from Shinseki's throat at the sight before him - the beautiful redhead with smooth alabaster form, exposed for his sinister pleasure.  
"I'm sure you'll like this..." Shinseki swiftly coated his own fingers with saliva and gently parted Izzy's cheeks, probing and stroking and working their sure way into his opening. It was Koushiro's turn to moan and Shinseki's face lit up with arousal. Such a focused point of warmth - he worked a third finger in.  
God... Was this really going to happen? Was he really going to take him here, pressed up against his kitchen sink?  
Izzy determinedly kept his hands on the counter top, but his rebellious throat was purring moans every time Shinseki plunged his fingers in and whimpered every time he removed them.  
Oh, God... Enough was enough! Shinseki felt as though he were going to explode waiting for Koushiro to do something. He couldn't wait, he couldn't take it anymore! Izzy was fully prepared now and even though the sane portion of his brain was telling him to go get a condom first, Shinseki simply positioned his cock and entered him in one smooth needful motion.  
Heat. Heat, heat and  _pleasure_. It was all he felt and it was too good to even move. He rested his head against Koushiro's back as a shared shudder passed through both bodies. But his cock was demanding, and he was only too willing to give it what it needed.  
Shinseki rocked slowly in and out, closing his eyes and focusing on the feeling. In, in, in, and soon his length was buried. The head of his penis kissed against a spot in Koushiro that took all the strength from the redhead's knees. Izzy leaned into the counter, crushing his arousal against the remainder of his pants and the cabinet door.  
The blonde pulled out and back in again, careful to ensure he thrust deep again. More firmly this time. A wordless cry was his reward. He felt Koushiro contract around him in reflex and the animal switch was flipped in Shinseki's mind. He moved faster, working back and forth faster, building up a steady rhythm to a frenetic pounding beat. Izzy's chest was tight as he groaned with each thrust. He was close, god he was close... But then, a cruel halt - the blonde suddenly slowed his pace. He only inched along, threatening to stop.  
Shinseki had not forgotten their little game and was determined to not give up. Determined to hear that one little word... Determined to have Koushiro give in.  
"Please. Please, Abe-kun..." It was a half-gasp and barely coherent.  
"Tsk, tsk. I don't think I heard you."  
"Oh god... Please. Please, please, please!" Koushiro's semblance of control was gone, his need leaking out into his words. Shinseki teased, sarcastic humor lacing his words.  
"Please what? I can't help you if I don't know what you want."  
"Please,  _please_  fuck me. God, do it now... fuck me!"  
With those sweet words, Shinseki let go, his movements fast and frantic. He placed his hands over Izzy's, somehow still gripping the metal sink. His pace quickened. He stopped holding back and let the feeling fully sink into every nerve. Without polite warning, his orgasm hit him, solid and overwhelming. Koushiro choked out a gasp as his own pleasure peaked, his eyes rolling back into his head, collapsing against the counter. Both men were silent as their brains bathed in the fog of their ebbing pleasure.  
Koushiro turned his head and provided Shinseki with a wilting stare full of unabated passion.  
"...I liked that very much."  
"Then let's not stop."  
Shinseki pulled him from the counter top, attacking him with hungry, unfulfilled kisses. He drew him across the kitchen, feverishly pushing him to the wall, pressing the fronts of their bodies together. Reveling in the new sensation.  
They found their way haphazardly to the living room. To the couch or to the bedroom? Abe couldn't make up his mind which he'd prefer to try first.  
The rug! Yes, start there, then they could work their way around his apartment, defiling every piece of furniture.  
He pushed Izzy down onto the luxurious patterns, determined to make him beg sweetly again. He wanted to see his eyes this time, wanted to see him beg before he took him.  
He lowered his head to tease the tip of his tongue over Koushiro's stomach. Delighted sighs tickled his ears and he could feel already that Koushiro was returning to a hard and ready state. He tilted his head up and caught his black irises in a heated gaze.  
"All I want to do is crawl back inside you." He received a lascivious presentation of Izzy's tongue licking over his lips in expectation. "But that pink little tongue of yours is giving me other ideas..." One red eyebrow cocked suggestively, and he took his time now in giving Shinseki a slow oral strip-tease depicting what was to come. Their locked stare never faltered as Koushiro used his tongue to tease across his teeth, then brought one finger up to his mouth and slowly sucked.  
Shinseki's body quivered in barely-restrained desire. "God, how can one man be so hot? You're just bottled sex, you know that? What a crime to keep you cloistered." Before the full impact of his last words could connect in Izzy's mind, Abe rolled them over, pulled Izzy on top of him, sucking and pulling at his lips, desperate to feel, desperate to touch. He was slowly devouring the smaller man and Izzy couldn't stop the tightness in his chest and legs from bringing his hands to Abe's erection, mimicking the rhythm of their mouths with his slim, deft digits.  
More, he had to make the blonde feel more - had to hear his delighted moans. Wordlessly, he pulled his mouth away, pulled his hands away.  
His lonely hands now traveled to Shinseki's shoulders, pinning him firming to the carpet. His mouth traveled impatiently down his chest, detouring in the hollow of his breastbone, loitering in his soft delicate navel. A chorus of gasps and a shudder rewarded Izzy for his dalliances. He mused on the shape of it as his tongue took another trip around the oval hollow, teasing. The folds were settled together just so - the shape just begged to be licked. He plunged his tongue in - Shinseki brought his fingers to Koushiro's hair.  
"Please... please, don't tease." Chuckling darkly, Izzy allowed his head to be pushed away from the pleasant little depression to an object simply pulsing with neglected frustration.  
"Please what, Abe-kun?"  
"Please, please, put that lovely mouth of yours on me... God..." He risked a look at the redhead's lowered face, smirking dangerously, inches above his burning need. It sent reserves of blood he didn't know he had straight into his cock. Oh, god...  
Koushiro could see his anxiousness building and took only a moment to indulge himself in another tease, hanging his mouth open, encircling his head with his lips, not touching, not really... Shinseki growled through his clenched teeth. "Don't be a bad boy, Koushiro..."  
Koushiro's warm plump lips began delivering wet caresses to his head, licking and sucking his way down, slowly taking inches into his mouth. He was determined to deliver a slow punishing pleasure before stepping up the tempo.  
But Shinseki's nerves were too raw, too impatient.  
"Don't be bad, be a GOOD boy, Koushiro," he panted. His hands wrapped in the red locks, pushing down on Izzy's head. Perhaps a little too hard - the tip of his cock bounced against the back of Izzy's throat. With his eyes closed, neurons connected the present to a resurfacing memory. The rug, the oddly English pattern - the short stiff bristles. The penis forced to the back of his throat. 'Be a good boy, Izumi.'  
He choked and placed his hands flat on the rug, pushing himself off of Shinseki's cock. It was too fast - his hands burnt against the fibers, and he brought them to his face, staring at the light pink marks. His hands were shaking.  
"Koushiro..." Shinseki's voice was mildly recriminating, unaware of the situation. "Enough teasing." His next words died in his throat as he took in the look on Izzy's face, his posture. The horror that was developing was painting his eyes shades of liquid and his cheeks pink. "Are... you okay? I didn't hurt you, did I?" He couldn't believe it - he hadn't done anything! Why was this happening? Why couldn't things rewind 15 seconds and WHY couldn't he still be sucking his cock?  
"Oh, Abe-kun..." Koushiro's voice shook with the effort of trying not to cry. "I'm so sorry..." His erection was still demanding, but Shinseki did his best to ignore it, instead sitting up and scooping Izzy into a half-embrace. He melted instantly into his arms, his voice broke, sobs shuddering through his chest.  
"What... What happened? Koushiro, please, talk to me." He rocked him gently back and forth, waiting until the tears waxed and waned and his shaking turned to gentle shivers.  
"It's... It's this damned rug. I'm sorry, Shinseki. Between what we were... And the stupid rug..." He struggled to tell him without having to repeat all the visions back through his memory, without having to pull all his recent dreams back through his mind. "It was a long time ago, but sometimes it feels like no time at all... I can't-" His voice broke and tears threatened to fall again.  
"Sssh... It's okay, you don't have to explain. You don't have to say anything." He rubbed in soothing circles on Izzy's back, trying to make his ragged breathing subside. "First, let's get the hell away from this rug. Then we can try and get some sleep." He helped Izzy unsteadily to his feet and was given a cautious smile as a reward.  
God, he was just too beautiful and perfect. That gorgeous little smile... GOD - he was suddenly so angry but he didn't let it leak through his comforting eyes.  
Whatever it was, someone had hurt him. Someone had forced him- How could he live with it? How much pain had he been through?  
These were all questions that stirred madly in his head. Questions he wanted answers to, but wisely left unsaid.  
Another time...  
Meanwhile, he would be sure to  _burn_  the eyesore rug at his first opportunity.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
One cream, one sugar, a few swirls with his stir-stick.  
Scritch, scritch.  
Shinseki brought the scalding beverage to his lips, trying to sort the pieces of his mind into some sort of semblance as he started his day.  
Koushiro. Koushiro and he had...  
A giddy little smile painted his face. He'd woken up cradling an angel, a beautiful redhead crafted from porcelain. His eyes closed as he remembered the soft smell of sweat on his skin, watched his delicate eyelids flutter in sleep.  
And he remembered the tears that coursed from those lovely eyes only a few hours before. Shinseki's brows knit.  
He would get to the bottom of this. It would take coaxing, and patience, and most importantly, trust. But in the end, he would find out exactly WHO had hurt his Koushiro.  
The steam from the coffee cup caressed his skin, clearing his mind. He had one primary suspect, one villain in the forefront of his thoughts. He carefully set down his untouched coffee and set about finding that person and treating them to a morning of hell.  
Lovely visions of vengeance flowed through his mind.  
  
At first glance, the black-haired man did not appear to be in the communal holding cell. He nodded to get the attention of an attending guard.  
"Ichijouji - where's he been taken?" The guard's eyebrows cocked quizzically.  
"...Don't you know?" The guard's sarcastic response slid easily from his mouth.  
"No. Care to enlighten me?"  
"The morgue."  
Shinseki's eyes flew open. Shock flooded through his system. Who the hell needed coffee?  
"You're joking me? When? What happened?"  
"Those two wannabe Yakuza jumped him last night. Bashed his fucking brains in with the toilet seat", he continued, unruffled. "Splattered them all over the floor. Was a bitch to clean up."  
He couldn't believe it - dead? No, there must be some mixup. His thoughts were jumping on top of each other, faster than his lips could hope to process.  
"Bashed his brains in - killed?"  
"Yeah, that's generally what happens when someone's skull splits open." The guard's continuing nonchalance was lost on Shinseki, whose mind was racing. "I sent what's left of him over to the ME."  
His feet began plodding back up the stairs to his office, on autopilot.  
Ichijouji - dead? From all their interviews, he thought for sure he was too street-smart, too aloof, to let himself get dragged into a fight with other inmates. Perhaps it was an old vendetta, and he was locked in with the wrong guys? Were the bruises from his arms two days ago a precursor to last night?  
God, who knows... Anything could have set some of the looser cannons off and if the guards weren't looking... He cringed inadvertently, imagining the horror of being trapped with your enemies with no hope of escape.  
Shinseki sat down at his desk and his hand automatically reached for his half-full coffee cup. As he brought it mechanically to his lips, a picture of gore painted his thoughts. Pink brain matter mixed with blood, adorning a plastic toilet seat. Eyes bulging in terror, questioning why... He set the coffee cup down shakily, nausea threatening to creep into his throat.  
No, Ichijouji couldn't be dead. Fate wouldn't allow it! He would never get the chance now to interrogate that sack of crap. It must be a mix up.  
He would never be able to extract the truth from him from about Koushiro, to break him down, to pick apart all his secrets.  
He didn't dare think it, but it was all too true: he would never be able to prove he was the better man.  
  
Someone had already done the honor, spilling his secrets, his pink entrails, all across the cement floor.  
His fingers reached for the phone, dialing the ME's number by heart.  
"Honda speaking."  
"Doctor Honda, this is Detective Abe with Homicide. I was informed one of my suspects was beaten to death in holding last night. You have his body in your possession, I assume?" Her speech was crisp and professional, every inch the woman she was.  
"Certainly. Ichijouji, I expect? I was about to begin a cursory autopsy. You're welcome to help me with the paperwork if you'd like?" Some strange curiosity compelled him.  
"Definitely. I'll be over there in 15 minutes."  
  
Shinseki's Toyota Crown S180 police cruiser pulled into the first vacant spot at the Kitami Morgue. He was, in an immature and boyish fashion, quite proud of the car. It was unmarked and pure black, which earned it an instant 5 points. It had a 3.5 liter V6 under the hood which was paired with AWD for breath-stealing acceleration. There was a myriad of gadgets hooked to the console in various fashions, all designed for communication, but dressed to impress.  
And it had big ugly tires attached to big, black, ugly steel wheels. The car reeked of duty-driven testosterone. God, he loved that car.  
He carefully pulled it up in front of the cement parking stop, and killed the engine. As he exited and walked towards the building, he gave one last loving look to the car. He and the car were made for each other. They were one and the same, purpose built and driven. No one would understand, but he felt a deep connection to it, even if it were just a glorified heap of forged steel.  
  
Entering the building, trying to push the reason that brought him here from his mind, he made his way quickly through hallways. All the hallways, painted in American 1950's avocado green, led him to the back of the building. The very, very back, where the examination/autopsy room lay. It was adjacent to the cold storage locker in the utmost back of the building, and Shinseki had visited this room many times in the past.  
His legs were again on autopilot.  
Pushing the door open, he was greeted by Dr Honda, fully decorated in her trademark blue scrubs.  
"Detective Abe." He nodded politely in greeting as his gaze wound its way to the body on the metal table.  
Where Ichijouji lay.  
Where Hiromiya had lain.  
  
He let his eyes take a cursory trip over the white sheet, the bumps in the cloth inferring hips, arms, chest. Pristine white feet stuck out at one end and at the other...  
At the other lay a disfigured pile of tissue. It resembled a head, but it stopped somewhere in the middle, where one would normally place a nose. The rest was a demented Picasso.  
The bile again teased his esophagus.  
No. No, if he did not give in when a good man, a priest lay on this table, he would not give in for a murderer.  
  
Because that's exactly what he was and exactly what Shinseki was determined to label him as. So what if he didn't rape Hiromiya? So what if he didn't kill him? It was his intention, it was his aim.  
How fitting that his disfigured form now graced the same table.  
"Just a general inspection this time, Detective." Doctor Honda did not flip on the microphone, did not record the proceedings. This was a suspect, a blight on society. Best to simply run down the checklist and continue on to the next, more deserving soul.  
She did not pull out her retractors. She did not use her bone saw. She pointed at Abe and then at a notepad on the instrument table. He quickly picked it up, happy for the distraction.  
"Trauma is indicative of blunt force. Area above the septum was the recipient of the most force. Pieces..." She bent over, grabbing a forceps without looking and beginning to explore the mixture of bone and fat. "Pieces... Shards of what appear to be white plastic are embedded in the post-cranial area. Correction - trauma is indicative of  **extreme**  blunt force."  
Shinseki jotted furiously, grateful for a distraction at this theatre of death, despite the fact he'd invited himself.  
"Cranial area is completely warped. She drew a frustrated arm over her brow as she stood, erect, shoulders back, the image of finality. "It is the opinion of this office that the victim died of blunt force trauma and no further investigation is warranted."  
  
  
  
  



	14. Grief

  
  
Koushiro painted his face with his best pious look, rosary beads clasped in his hands for effect.  
It killed him to wear these robes, their sanctity defiled. But he would do it gladly if it meant he could see Ken again. Apologize for the hurtful things he said.  
Beg forgiveness from one, even if he could not from the Holy Father.  
The guard standing before him gave him a self-confident, knowing stare. A cold chill crept over Izzy's skin. It was the same guard who had naively admitted him yesterday. His brow knit in embarrassment, in apology.  
"I apologize for misleading you yesterday, Sir. I am-  _was_  a priest... I  _did_  intend to give counsel to the prisoner... I- I'm so sorry." He cast his eyes to the floor. "Is there compassion in your heart to let me pass through just once more?" He dared to look up, into the guard's eyes. Cold humor danced through them and spread to his mouth in a wicked grin.  
"Who are you coming to see today,  _Father_?" Koushiro closed his eyes against the false title, delivered with biting sarcasm. He swallowed against his own shame.  
"Ichijouji Ken, Sir."  
"I'm afraid he's not able to see visitors today." Koushiro's eyes fixed on the guard's, questioning, but not able to form a question. His hands shook, remembering the bruises on Ken's face, the bite on his neck. His mind rushed ahead, forming terrible conclusions.  
"Why not?"  
"He's dead, Father." Koushiro's eyes widened, his heart stopped. He had not dared to imagine that.  
"No."  
"Oh, yes. Care to know how long it took to sop his blood from the floor?"   
"No! No, no, oh my God, no..." He remembered his hurt eyes from yesterday, vivid blue with pain. The terrible, vicious things they had said to one another, his from selfishness, Ken's from jealousy. No... Ken dead? This couldn't, this  _wasn't_  happening! His mind screamed, his heart clenched in his chest. Tears formed in his eyes and the guard took advantage of it, reveling in sadistic pleasure.  
"Well, I'll tell you anyway. The blood was leaking from where his head  _used to be_  and it ran all over the floor. There was even blood spattered on the walls. Your poor Ichijouji got into a fight he couldn't win. They broke his arm." He paused for dramatic effect, very pleased to see the horror coursing over the false-father's face. This  _faggot_. "They used the toilet seat to bash. his. brains. out." Koushiro's faced drained of blood, imagining the whole scene in his head. The guard clapped his hands together, mimicking the sound of a human skull cracking open.  
Tears streamed down his face and he turned and ran, unable to stand the bold truth delivered in cold, heartless fashion.  
  
He bunched his cassock in his hands and ran. Ran and ran, until his heart felt like it would beat out of his chest, like his lungs would explode. The snow and grey slush from the streets coated his shoes, chilling his toes. The wind slapped against his face. But he could not feel it.  
Ken was dead.  
Beaten to death by godless criminals in a concrete hell hole. Koushiro couldn't stop crying. It was all his fault, right from the beginning. He had taken him in, he had reached out to him in that dark room, taken his confession to heart. From the shower, to the floor, to the basement, all the places they had defiled each other... All the times he had opened his heart to him.  
He loved him. He knew it in his fingertips, in the rapid, painful beating of his heart. And now he was dead...  
He doubled over, clutching at the concrete railing for support. In his blind grief, without thought, he'd arrived at the bridge. His eyes traced the waves as the water rushed underneath him. The cold liquid beckoned, but he pushed the thoughts from his mind.  
No... No, things were still unanswered. He took a deep breath, and with effort stood up from the railing. His cold hands into fists... And his feet led him to a familiar address.  
  
The air was so bitter cold and it had frozen the trails of his recent tears to his face. Koushiro paused on the sidewalk, feet faithfully pulling him to the condemned house Ken had called home. 'This is where I followed him. This is where he said...' His mind refused to finish the thought.  
The strange compulsion pulled him up the steps, through the broken door, up the stairs, carefully navigating the loose boards. A woman, hair matted with grease, eyes darting nervously, peeked out at him from one of the rooms. Izzy slowly withdrew his eyes from her accusing glare, finding the door that led to Ken's secret hideaway.  
There it was - abused mattress bare on the floor, light streaming in from between the old threadbare curtains. With a great sob, Izzy sank onto the mattress, cupping his head in his hands.  
It was all so broken, all so rushed and frantic...  **They**  were broken, their love frenzied and now... over. Two desperate souls had crept out of their bombshell lives to find one another and create some tiny happiness and sanity in the world. Now it was all gone.  
And now he had Shinseki... Koushiro had ruined his and Ken's tenuous happiness by lusting after another man... By fornicating with him! He was going to hell, there was no doubt about it. What type of punishment would Divinity merit him? Fire and lamentations? An eternity being crushed beneath the clubs of sadistic taskmasters? Izzy's sobs grew frantic and he pulled his head up from his hands, lungs wracked, desperately trying to slow his cries.  
He was used and thoroughly abused, and how he would pay for it. He begged for mercy! He was already suffering deep and lasting lacerations. Ken had loved him and he had been too blind to see it. All the others: Professor Chambers, perhaps Achikawa, perhaps Shinseki? It pained him to think, but he knew deep down, all the others were just using him.  
The hurt, the shame, engulfed him and on impulse he reached under the mattress to one of Ken's hidden caches. Sure enough, there was a small pharmacy of illicit drugs: pills, bags of powder, bottles of liquid, still sterile syringes.  
He had no chance of forgiveness now, and his vile member twitched with the thought of Shinseki, of Ken. Of the sinful and pleasurable things they had done...  
There was no further to go, no more mortal sins to blemish his soul... Save one.  
Tears running down his face, Koushiro pulled one syringe out of its plastic home. Its owner wouldn't mind, his essence had already violently evacuated his body, seeking out another plane.  
To heaven, to hell? Or the vast void? Did god even exist? Did any of this  _even matter?!_  
Koushiro bit his lip in pain, his heart and mind were tearing each other apart. Ken was dead, there was no escaping it, and the cruel fact kept running through his head. He didn't want to think about it anymore, he would meet his maker for an eternity of penance or the black depthless hole of non-existence.  
The pills and powder - they would merely make him hallucinate. The liquid, perhaps a more viable option.  
The 150 ml bottle bore a simple paper label: GHB. It had to be better than nothing. It had to be better than throwing yourself off a bridge. Better than eating a bullet, better than bleeding out your wrists. Better than living this cursed life.  
He slid the sharp needle through the thin rubber top, filling the syringe with the clear liquid.  
Koushiro breathed through his nose, flaring his nostrils, blind pain coursing through his veins. He held the needle gingerly against his arm, panicked tears leaking from his eyes.  
No more pain, no more pleasure. He would follow Ken into whatever lay beyond.  
He would share his fate.   
The cold needle pierced his flesh and the plunger fell swiftly forward, depositing death into his body.  
A sigh of relief passed through his mouth and he fell back onto the soiled cushion.  
Ken had wanted to see the azaleas in spring.  
Perhaps, wherever he was going, there would be azaleas in full bloom for them both...  
  
Unbeknownst to Koushiro, further under the mattress, lay a letter opener.  
Pristine and unused.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Shinseki's feet plodded slowly up the stairs to his apartment. Yesterday, they had literally flown - into the redhead's waiting embrace. Now? Now he was dreading the truth that was surely saturating his eyes, one which he knew the sharp man wouldn't easily miss.  
He was dreading the conversation about his ex-lover, his death. He knew his own face reflected the aftermath of gore, his clothes still reeked with the smell of decay.  
Abe's hand held the doorknob lightly, careful to place his key in the lock soundlessly, turn the knob slowly, so slowly. But Koushiro was not in the apartment. The detective walked from room to room, but there was no sign of his cerise haired angel.  
The nervousness that dwelt in his stomach did not leave, but instead rose up his esophagus as his eyes scanned the dining room table, the kitchen countertops.  
No note.  
  
He was out getting dinner, or out... doing whatever it is that ex-priests do in the evening instead of being warm and safe in his apartment?!  
Cold fear grew in the base of his gut. Why could keep Koushiro purposefully away from his inviting embrace at 7 at night? With no note? With no call?  
He ran back down the stairs, out to his police cruiser, flying down the streets to the station. The streetlights and people passed in a blur, his knuckles gripping the steering wheel unconsciously.  
He pulled into his parking spot haphazardly, killed the engine, pushed his way violently out of the car and up the concrete steps. Cold dread rotted in his gut as he approached the guards' lockers. There he was, grabbing his empty lunch box out of the locker and donning his coat and hat.  
"Takahata. Can I have a word with you before you leave?" The guard forced a tired smile on his face. "Certainly, Detective. Can we walk and talk?" Shinseki tried to keep his speech slow, tried to keep his words from running over each other. His heart was pounding out of his chest.  
"Did a priest come to visit the prisoners today?"  
"Yeah, in fact two of them did. Why?" He wasn't being helpful, didn't plan on being helpful. The guards didn't hold the detectives in high regard, and vice versa. Different class strata, different socio-economic levels, good healthy law enforcement rivalry.  
"Never mind why. Did one of them come to visit the deceased prisoner, Ichijouji?" The guard's eyes narrowed into slits.  
"There's something fishy going on with the three of you, isn't there? That priest, god, he's the fruitiest faggot I've seen in a long time." He sneered derisively.  
"Yeah, him..." The detective managed to keep his fists balled at his side instead of wrapped around Takahata's neck. "Did he come here today?" The guard nodded.  
"Yeah, and it was great fun to see the look on his fucking face when I told him Ichijouji was dead." Takahata smirked, "Thought he could pull one over on me - I got the last laugh!"  
Shinseki's face was mottled with rage.  
"What time exactly was that?" His jaw was rigid.  
"Oh, about 10 am..." He stopped walking towards the door, catching Abe by the shoulder. "Can I ask why? ...Again?"  
"None of your fucking business. Get your filthy hands off of me!" His blood ran cold. 10 am. Where had he been all this time? Why hadn't he called him after he found out the news? Where exactly was he?!  
He slapped the guard's hand back, bolting towards the entrance and to his car.  
"What the hell is everyone's problem today?!" Takahata yelled, oblivious, at the swinging door.  
  
The cold air met Shinseki's face, and he dropped his hands flat to the hood of his police cruiser, sucking air into his chest by the lungful. This couldn't be happening! Where was Koushiro?  
If he found out in the morning, and he hadn't come home, and hadn't left a note, and hadn't called him...  
Two thoughts passed through his mind: the bridge or the church. A cold shiver went down his back at the first possibility. Instead, he clung to hope, started up the Toyota, and drove like hell over to St Barnard's.  
  
Achikawa was there to greet him with thinly veiled derision. Or was it jealousy? A dangerous brew boiled in his eyes as he answered Shinseki's one question, quickly and curtly.  
"Haven't seen him. That's a blessing." The bridge, oh god, the bridge... As soon as he was back in the Toyota, as soon as the massive doors had closed, he buried his head in his hands and wept. He knew it, he knew it without having to see, without needing to hold his cold limp body in his arms. Why? Why just when he had found happiness? Why, when Koushiro had his options wide open, when he would be there, supporting him, loving him? Why? Was there no hope in the world, no promise? Did everything, even his bright and pure light, destined to be corrupted and deserted? He cried until his face burned, until his lungs screamed for air. The image of his blue lips and the dazzling light in his eyes mixed in his mind until he couldn't bear it any longer. The car started, guiding him solemnly home.  
  
But when he arrived, the weight of the silence crushed him. There was no one to brighten the oppressive space, no presence to sing through the air. His angel... Cold and dead. The fridge, the vodka bottle called to him. Just a little to ease his pain. One shot for his smile. One shot for his smooth skin. One shot for the burning passion. One shot for the precipice of pleasure they brought each other to... No, two for that, and for the unutterable pain of its loss.  
  
One shot for his sharp mind.  
One shot for innocence.  
One for saving his life once.  
One for being powerless now.  
One for the color of his hair in the morning light.  
One for the spring he would never see, this endless winter.  
One for his kindness.  
One for his love.  
  
Shortly, the bottle was empty and disorienting waves of pain and vertigo swam through his blood.  
Perhaps he'd drunk too much. Perhaps he'd drunk too fast.  
A lone tear crept down his face, touching his dry lips. Perhaps he'd meet his Koushiro once more after all. Sound was gone and blackness crept into his vision. At the very last, he thought he could taste him on his lips.  
"My Koushiro..."  
  


 

  
  
  
  
  
Epilogue  
  
Winter passed inevitably into Spring as it had for millennia before. The river's waters warmed, the frost was expelled from the ground. The snow melted from the sidewalks and the sun struggled free from the tight clench of damp, dismal clouds. Freshly seeded grass grew over a patch of bare dirt, the color so verdant green it glowed in the early morning sunlight. It was a color only newly germinated plants could hold, there was no comparison in the wide scope of nature. The tiny strands covered the ground and in time would give the fresh grave generality, blending into the many small sites that covered the hillside. The small stone that marked the burial site was so much like the surrounding markers that passing mourners would have no cause to closely inspect it. The kanji was simple, marking the deceased's name and the date of his passing. It was a pauper's grave, a criminal's grave. There were no flowers to mark it. The only significance of the site was its perfect view of the brilliant azaleas that now covered the surrounding slopes.  
  
Fresh green grass covered another new grave 800 miles south. Flowers and candles decorated the small but cleanly polished marker, lamenting the passing of the one buried beneath. Graceful kanji marked the name of the deceased and the day of his passing, and underneath three simple lines were carved:  
  
Hitodama de (Now as a spirit)  
yuku kisan ja (I shall roam)  
natsa no hara (the summer fields)  
  
It was by no means an audacious marker, it did not call out for attention. It simply proclaimed the abject grief of those left behind by the passing of a clever, beautiful, tragic soul.  
  
If we return to the azalea covered hills of the north, we may catch a glimpse of the rich customs surrounding the funeral for a civil servant, a parade of uniforms on a stark hillside. The men and women are gathered, silent, in their grey dress garb, shoes polished to mirror perfection, hats and coats free of any shameful wrinkle or mar. Quiet as the falling of cold spring rain, one man, whose hands are tightly grasped around a small but exquisite jar, removes the lid and begins to pour out the contents. The wind is ever renewed in spring and it spirits the falling ashes away, lofts them high and out of sight while the stoic group trembles below. Where was the petulant wind taking these ashes? Out to sea? Up to the hills? Or perhaps to a different destination, one 800 miles south, to a small patch of ground decorated with a polished marker, graced with flowers, and wet with the tears of the morning dew.  
  
Fin  
  
  
Note/Credits: Hokusai wrote the haiku jisei death poem quoted above.  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
